Biblical Hebrew Forum

["wattswestmaas" <wattswestmaas AT eircom.net>]

It will take me some time to digest all that has been said and thanking you
all for your input.  However I do have a proffessionaly un-proffessional
question which concerns me:

The commonly held assumption that the Masoretes around 500 to 1000 AD were
the gentlemen that added the whole vowel pointing system raises more
questions than it does answer. As I have come to learn that this is still an
open debate in other circles that began around 1600 and much has been
written for and against in 1748, 1767, 1800 and onwards, all convincing
arguments either way.  But I am still learning ... and reading on this
matter!


Nevertheless I would appreciate the board's answers to this thorny issue
that i have which probably does stem from ignorance in learning rather than
being a challenging question to you all  ------ and it is:

         Why Oh why did these HIGHLY masterful people of their own language 
see fit
NOT to be able to decide on a vowel pointing for this word?  Why leave it
'empty' so to speak?  Why leave it to open discussion?  Why not simply point
it as is already done in two other instances namely: ISA 33:23 and LEV
11:42?  SURELY (in this instance anyway) it can not mean anything else other
than; 'increase', 'more of'..., or 'much more'? Surely it must have been
pronounced  thousands and thousands of times over the years ... right?  So
what is the problem?  There are, as I understand it from my limited
knowledge of biblical hebrew, far more complex grammatical situations where
vowel pointing is inserted, and yet here on an apparantly simple and
straightforward, unambiguous level, future generations are left to wonder at
the apparent mystery of an unpointed verb with an 'apparant' mistake left
uncorrected by MASTERS of their own scripture and language. Why?

Yours in simplicity

Chris, Ireland.