Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Patrina" <patrina AT bestmail.us>]

Tony

As others have pointed out, the addition of yod as a vowel indicator is
the reason for the different spelling of DWD as DWYD.  This brings up
something else I've been pondering:

Regarding the use of maters as vowel indicators, I'm a little puzzled
that the spelling of Judah throughout the Tanach is always YHWDH with a
mater waw (as far as I know... maybe I'm mistaken?).  Hezekiah's seals
spell Judah as YHDH (without a mater) around 7th century BCE.  If there
were at least a few spellings of YHDH dotted throughout the Pentateuch,
Prophets and Writings as well as YHWDH, it would seem reasonable to
suggest that the defective spellings were older occurences, or that full
spellings represent later redaction as with the DWD and DWYD examples...
 it just seems unlikely to me that later redaction would have been 100%
thorough?!  

Patrina Nuske Small
Adelaide, South Australia

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 08:38:41 +0200, "Yigal Levin"
<leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> said:
> Hi Tony,
> 
> The use of Y as an indicator for the vowel "i" (like most uses of matres
> lectonis) is a fairly late developement in Hebrew. We find none in the
> Gezer
> Calendar, few in the Mesha inscription or the Tell Dan inscription (yes,
> I
> know that these are Moabite and Aramaic, but they reflect the same
> trends),
> more in the Siloam, Ekron and in 7-6 century ostraca, bullae etc.
> 
> The text of most of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History is
> also
> 7-6th centuries, so it does use matres lectonis in regular words. But,
> presumably, a name like David already had a standardized spelling from
> the
> previous period (it's also spelled "defectively" - without the Y - in the
> Tell Dan inscription). However, in the Second Temple period the Y was
> added
> even in such names - hence the spelling DVYD in Chronicles, Zachariah
> etc.
> This is also the spelling in later Hebrew - the Mishnah, Talmud, and
> synagogue inscriptions.
> 
> The fact that there is one case of DVYD in Kings is probably because a
> late
> copyist mistakenly used the spelling that was common in his day. The fact
> that such "pre-exilic" prophetic books like Hosea and Amos also use DVYD
> probably says something about the redaction history of those books (or of
> "The Twelve" as a whole).
> 
> Yigal
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tony Costa" <tmcos AT rogers.com>
> To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Monday, June 21, 2004 4:55 AM
> Subject: [b-hebrew] DVD or DVYD?
> 
> 
> > Dear Friends, I noticed that there appears to be a variant in the MT for
> the name David. In some places David is spelled DVD (eg. 2 Sam.7:5;
> Ps.89:21), while in others it is spelled DVYD (eg.1 Chron.15:1-3;
> Hos.3:5),
> with the yod between the vav (or waw) and daleth. Why the inclusion of
> the
> yod? Is this a later development as a variant in the name of David? BDB
> (sv.DVD) states that these variants of David can occur together in the
> same
> text. For instance, while the books of Kings uses DVD, there is an
> exception
> in 1 Kings 3:14 where DVYD is used. Is this a late development or was it
> simply the case that this name could be spelled both ways. Many thanks.
> >
> > Tony Costa
-- 
  Patrina
  patrina AT bestmail.us