Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Peter,

The Psalm text of Origen's Hexapla is found in Mercati, G (1958 and 
1965) "Psalterii Hexapli Reliqviae". A detailed study of the vowels used 
by Origen is found in Brönno, E. (1943) "Studien über hebräische 
Morphologie and Vokalismus" Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 
xxvii.

Brönno lists 99 examples of gemination in the second column, and he says 
that after the article the following consonant is always geminated when 
that is possible (p. 204). However, there is no example of gemination in 
any of the WAYYIQTOLs and WEYIQTOLs.

The WEYIQTOL of Psalm 18:47 is written as OUIAROUM and the WAYYIQTOL  of 
18:48 as OUIEDABBER (note the gemination of the second radical).  This 
means that the two basic differences between WAYYIQTOL  and WEYIQTOL 
(gemination and patah) either did not exist in Origen's Vorlage, or he 
ignored them.

If we look at Manuscripts with Palestinian pointing, we find confusion 
as well. In "Masoreten des Westens (1930) Paul Kahle published three 
manuscripts with Palestinian pointing. One of them (J) covers Daniel 
9:24-12:13. In these 82 verses I count fifty YIQTOLs with prefixed WAW, 
and ten of these are pointed. Of these, one is pointed as a WAYYIQTOL 
both in MT and in J, three are pointed as WAYYIQTOLs both places, and 
six are pointed as WAYYIQTOLs in J but as WEYIQTOLs in MT. The reference 
in all of them is future.

Best regards,

Rolf Furuli


Peter Kirk wrote:

> On 15/03/2006 06:53, Rolf Furuli wrote:
>
> > ...
> >
> > My Question was about Origen's use of vowels. If he, where the 
> > Masoretes used shewa, used the original vowel, and he used OU- both 
> > for WAYYAIQTOL  and WEYIQTOL, wouldn't that mean that both forms in 
> > his view had the same vowel?
> >
> >   
>
> Surely Origen's OU- (omicron, upsilon) doesn't represent a vowel at 
> all, but, according to common usage in Greek transcription, the 
> consonant sound [w]. So I would want to ask what follows this OU-: a 
> consonant (and if so, is it ever doubled?), or a vowel, and if so 
> which vowel? Are there any differences in the patterns between 
> WAYYIQTOL and WEYIQTOL verbs, as recorded by the Masoretes? Since you 
> say that there are only 18 such verb forms surviving from the Hexapla, 
> perhaps it would be possible to share these 18 with the list, with 
> their Masoretic equivalents or their references.