Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Kirk Lowery <klowery AT whi.wts.edu>]

David Hamuel wrote:
> @ Chris
>> Minor modifications have been made to the Unicode/XML Westminster
> Leningrad Codex at.....
> 
> 
> What about Isa. 30:32 (the word Kol)? Why the ta'am appears as
> mahpakh instead of yetiv?

David,

If you'll look at the Leningrad Codex facsimile, you'll see that the
ta'am begins precisely at the beginning of the kaf. This is true under
magnification. BHS prints it the same way. Since yetiv is prepositive,
one might expect it to begin *before* the kaf.

For such a short word as K.OL, with only two consonants, there isn't
much room to distinguish between the two.

However, there is a syntactic (contextual) reason to prefer mahpakh:
K.OL is in the construct with the following noun. We would expect a
conjunctive accent (mahpakh) here instead of a disjunctive (yetiv),
which would be very strange.

Cf. Yeivin, Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah, p. 199:

"Mehuppak [i.e., mahpakh] and yetiv are also distinguished by the
accents which follow them. Mehuppak is always followed by pashta [which
is true in Is 30:32]. Yetiv is generally followed by zaqef."

Blessings,

Kirk
-- 
Kirk E. Lowery, PhD, Director
The J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research
Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia
--
"While religion prescribes brotherly love in the relations among
the individuals and groups, the actual spectacle more resembles
a battlefield than an orchestra."
                                         -- Albert Einstein