Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David P Donnelly <davedonnelly1 AT juno.com>]

On Page 144 of his book:
The Name of God Y.EH.OW.AH
Which is pronounced as it is Written I_EH_OU_AH,
Gerard Gertoux writes:

>>>
The situation is identical for other codices. 
The most frequent error is the transformation of e, a into e, o, a, 
thus the changing of the form YeHWaH into YeHoWaH,
which one finds in the Aleppo codex (Ezk 3:13 etc.) 
and in the Or4445 codex (Ex 16:7; 40:29; etc.)

These errors are very old and can be observed on reproductions of
biblical fragments
dated between 700 and 900. Something that doubtless facilitated this kind
of error,
in spite of the scrupulous attention of the copyists,
was the presence of a sign of cantillation, the rebia, 
which was very difficult to distinguish from the point representing the
vowel o.

So, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century CE the qere e, a (kept by
the present BHS)
changed into e, o, a (kept by the former BHK)
which would become the standard qere in Jewish Bibles.
>>> 

Dave Donnelly
>From rosewalk AT concentric.net  Mon Jul 18 09:44:21 2005
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Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 09:44:18 -0400
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From: Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Questions about YHWH
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It was not pronounced publicly - it was pronounced only in the 
innermost chamber, he was there alone.

Shoshanna




Later rabbinic sources recount that the Name was pronounced publicly by the
High Priest only on Yom Kippur, and that after the destruction of the
Temple, the proper pronunciation was lost.