Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

The epigraphic evidence, while limited, does show that at least for 
suffixes the preference in Israel was YW (such as the in the Samaria Ostraca 
names GDYW and $MRYW), while the preference in pre-exilic Judah was YHW. 
This probably has to do with the same diphtong contraction shown in other 
words in Israelean inscriptions, such as YN for "wine" instead of YYN. 
Post-exilic
Judah prefered YH.
The forms given in the Bible are no proof of anything, since the Bible is 
Judahite, and even the "pre-exilic" books were as least heavily edited in 
the post-exilic period.

All this was noted by Tur-Sinai decades ago, when he published the Lachish 
ostraca found in the 1930's.

Yigal Levin


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Joel Stucki" <joel AT stucki.ws>
> To: "Larry Baden" <llbaden AT sbcglobal.net>
> Cc: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 5:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] theophoric prefixes (YH~YHW)
>
>
> > On 8/8/06, Larry Baden <llbaden AT sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > > I have read (the source escapes me at present) that the "hu" suffix was 
> > > used
> > > only in the Northern Kingdom, and not the south. Can anyone address 
> > > whether
> > > that may be true? Was it a dialect issue?
> > >
> > > Larry Baden
> > > St. Louis, MO 63119
> > The name Isaiah kind of throws this off. He was a southerner with no
> > apparent ties to the northern kingdom and his name appears alternately
> > as Yeshayahu and Yeshayah. Hezekiah's name does the same. Seems like
> > one might be a more formal name but that's just a guess.
> >
> > Joel Stucki
> > _______________________________________________
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