Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Bryant:

I had forgotten about the acrostic psalms. For me, that was one of the
first things that made me start to question what I had been taught. I
take this in connection with other evidence that indicates that sin
and shin were originally one letter.

On 11/28/06, Bryant J. Williams III <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net> wrote:
> Dear Yitzhak,
>
> I do not know; that is why I asked. Since the acrostic is a mnemonic device
> the most likely reason is that the position is what is being emphasized not
> the sound.
>
> Rev. Bryant J. Williams III

Some of the psalms, e.g. 25, are not complete acrostics. # 25 misses a
bet, waw, qoph, doubles the aleph and resh with a final verse starting
with a peh, making it look that either the author left an uncompleted
work, modified an existing acrostic to give the message he wanted or
decided after writing a partial acrostic that he did not want to
complete the work as an acrostic. The same with some of the other
partial acrostics.

Karl W. Randolph.