Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jason Hare" <jaihare AT gmail.com>]

John,

I definitely agree with Yigal on this. Looks pretty obvious. Some books even
do this today, using the meteg/silluq as a tone indicator rather than as a
trope mark. The addition of etnachta is for phrase division. Definitely
seems to be the correct way to see this. Just wanted to state my agreement.

Regards,
Jason Hare

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 5:55 AM, Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> wrote:

> Dear John,
>
> Is this from a Hebrew translation of Matthew. Because if it is, than these
> are not properly "trope marks" at all. Remember, the Masoretes never
> cantilized the New Testament, which is not part of the Hebrew Bible. The
> writer/copiest/printer/whoever used Etnah marks to show the main stop in
> each verse, and the marks that you are circled seem to simply have been
> inserted in order to show where the accent is, to insure proper reading.
>
> Yigal Levin