Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 02/08/2005 18:52, Read, James C wrote:

> Davidson's grammar shows a series of paradigms on the back pages.
>
> It shows examples of hiphil/hophal lamed-he verbs 3ms imperfect:
>
> YaGLeH, YaaGLeH
>  

I'm not sure what "aa" represents here, whether this is your convention 
or Davidson's, but this should certainly be a qamats hatuf, pronounced "o".

> It shows examples of hiphil/hopjal pe-guttural verbs 3ms imperfect:
>
> Ya(aMiYD, Yaa(aaMaD
>  

Is the second "aa" here intended to be hataf qamats? Anyway, hophal 
examples are irrelevant here, because no one has suggested that the name 
is a hophal - and anyway the meaning "he is caused to be" is 
theologically inappropriate. And the "a" after the ayin in Ya(aMiYD is a 
hataf patah, which is significantly shorter than the preceding patah and 
so should be distinguished in your transliteration.

> It shows examples of hiphil/hophal ayin-waw verbs 3ms imperfect:
>
> YaaQiYM, YuWQaM
>
> The root HaWaH is irregular in all three of these respects. If we are to 
> reconstruct the 3ms imperfect of HWH in a scholarly way we need to apply 
> all three rules.
>
> Applying the lamed-he aspect to YHWH we get:
>
> YaHWeH
>
> which is popular in scholoarly circles but shown to be inaccurate. ...
>  

Well, Gesenius was the greatest Hebrew scholar of the 19th century, the 
same century as Davidson's grammar, so are you saying that you know 
better than him? The true position seems to be that there was a tendency 
to replace sheva under "gutturals" inlcuding he with a hataf vowel 
(matching the preceding vowel), but these hataf vowels became more 
common in later Masoretic texts e.g. probably Ben Hayyim but are fewer 
in earlier manuscripts e.g. Aleppo, Leningrad. So it is a reasonable 
supposition that these were not part of the original pronunciation, but 
indicate a rather late pronunciation change.

> ... Applying also the pe-guttural we get:
>
> YaHaWeH
>
> which is trisyllabic but does not agree with the YaHu/YaHo theophoric 
> components.
> Applying also the ayin-waw it is possible that the extra pe-guttural vowel causes 
> a change in normal vowelling that would produce something like:
>
> YaHoWeH/YaHuWeH
>  

No, it is not. The vowel under the he would be a very short hataf vowel 
and would always match the preceding vowel, so another "a". It does not 
change to match the following consonant.

> which is in agreement with both the theophoric components and the 
> transliteration
>
> IAOUAI
>  

No, it is not in agreement with the latter. Note that in Greek OU is a 
unit, not a sequence or even a diphthong. It does not represent and "o" 
vowel followed by a "w" consonant, but either a "u" vowel or a "w" 
consonant.

> Any thoughts Peter?
>
> I think we're both wasting our time with the I,You,He theory.
>  

Agreed.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
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