Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Yigal,

> Good question. Why is the yod in most accurances of YHWH, when supposedly
> meant to be vocalized "Adonai", spelled with a shewa and not a hataph-patah,
> like the aleph in Adonai? Don't know. I don't think that it has to do with
> the Aramaic Shema - that is a Samaritan tradition, which I doubt would have
> influenced the masoretes. Besides, in most prints (but not in BHS), the he
> in YHWH has a holam, like the dalet in Adonai (this is the source of the
> pronunciation "Jehovah").

HH: Thanks, as I was wondering about the missing holam in the BHS 
text I was looking at.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard