Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Tigran Aivazian <tigran AT bibles.org.uk>]

On Sat, 26 Feb 2005, Karyn Traphagen wrote:
> From Ruth 2 vs 2 we have the verb _wa'alaqotah_ (I probably don't have the 
> transliteration accurate... the word is: waw-patach--aleph-hataf 
> patach--lamed-patach--qof-hataf qamats--tet-qamats--heh) No dagesh. The verb 
> is parsed as a Piel cohortative. I don't expect this pointing with a Piel 
> stem! Where is the dagesh in the middle root? The BHQ has a dagesh in the 
> tet. Why?

If you had checked with my massoretico-critical edition of the Hebrew 
Bible you would have noticed the reading to be (in Tiqwah encoding, see 
http://www.bibles.org.uk/pdf/misc/tiqwah.pdf for a table of conversion, 
but I think it is intuitively obvious :)

wa<SIL>'Halaq*"TA<MUN>h<RAF>

and there is a textual footnote explaining why and showing the 
alternative:

\fn{<H>kn wa'Halaq*"TAh hqw!!p bW/w' lbd d!!', d!!b, d!!g, d!!w wdT!!w, 
'bl bhrbh sprym k<NIL>!!y wdpwsym yW/nym wa'Halaq*HATAh hqw!!p bxTp qmY 
wkn xd!!h, dy!!', xd!!w, dy!!b wdy!!d.</H>}

For those not familiar with textual variant footnotes I shall gladly 
translate it to English:

"thus qoph with Shewa only in the following editions:

  1. Hagiographa, Naples 1486-1487
  2. First edition of the Bible Soncino 1488
  3. Second edition, Naples ca 1491-1493
  4. Third edition, Brescia 1494, and
  5. ben Chayim's 1524-1524 Second Rabbinic Bible.

However, in many manuscripts and ancient editions the reading has qoph 
with khateph kamets and so in the following editions:

  1. Pentateuch, Brescia 1492
  2. Complutensian Polyglott
  3. Pentateuch, Venice 1516
  4. First Rabbinic Bible by Felix Pratensis, 1517. and
  5. Bomberg quarto edition, Venice 1521"

As you see, I don't even mention the reading you quote, found in the 
so-called "scholar" editions (based on Leningrad Codex) because there is 
no real manuscript or early printed editions support for it. Ok, except 
Leningrad Codex. But Aleppo Codex has a dagesh there, so Leningrad Codex 
is here a "law unto itself". I sometimes quote it but not always.

Also, if you check the Oriental 2626-27-28 (obviously "28" volume thereof) 
you will also see a dagesh in there. This is the beautifully illuminated 
Shephardi Codex which is the base of Snaith's edition published by BFBS in 
1958. And Letteris has a dagesh in there as well. (though it is not known 
which mss served as a base for Meri haLevi Letteris)

My guess is that Leningrad Codex also had a dagesh in there but it's just 
not visible any more (that particular part of the manuscript is not very 
easily readable). This is why I haven't listed L's reading against Ruth 2:2,
because I am not 100% sure it was like that originally... (ah, I should be
careful with the word "original" here :)

Shalom
Tigran

PS. The edition I referred to is still work in progress but the current 
snapshot is freely downloadable as tnk.pdf from http://www.bibles.org.uk