Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

   Verse 22  continues  the description in verse  8 where Abraham is 
described as standing under the tree. Thus  verse 22 reads: ..." and Abraham 
still  [ (wdnw  - odenu  ]  stands...."
 
  Uri 

wattswestmaas <wattswestmaas AT eircom.net> wrote:
GENESIS 18:22

"the Lord yet stood before Abraham" and "Abraham yet stood before the Lord"
the first sentence being substituted for the latter in the masoretic notes.

I do not understand why the scribes would object to the first rendering?

Chris Watts.

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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 12:51:10 +0300
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> >Note "everything" and "potentially." Vowels are central to Semitic
> >morphology. They "are" the morphology. Without vowels, script is not just
> >potentially sometimes ambiguous, but morphologically inadequate.
> >
> You seem to be contradicting yourself. First you claim that Semitic is
> vowelless, now that vowels are central to its morphology. Do you mean
> that there has been a change since Bible times, that Hebrew etc used to
> be vowelless and then acquired vowels? If so, do you mean that biblical
> Hebrew originally lacked morphology? This is patently ridiculous.
>

No, of course, I don't claim so. Biblical Hebrew is a very late language,
certainly with diversified vowels.
I suggest that an original kamatz diversified into several vowels (tzere and
holam) due to syntactical stress, and other vowels are similarly derivative,
products of morphological diversification. A single-vowel language was the
first step, when language consisted of verbs only (I think this is more
likely than noun-only primary language). This language, whether West Semitic
or Egyptian, is now lost, but its two of its traces survive: vowelless
writing and kamatz-derivative vowels.

Vadim Cherny