Biblical Hebrew Forum

[tedbro AT aol.com]

Hi, Barry:
 
Others on this list (such as Yigal) are surely more capable, I'd be  glad 
to take a stab at explaining the slight difference between the vowels of  
Adonai and the pointing of YHWH in the majority of its occurrences in the  MT.
 
The only difference is the presence of a simple shva on the yod of YHWH and 
 a compound shva (patach hateph) on the initial aleph of Adonai.
 
 
When words are lengthened in Hebrew, the vowel in the beginning often  
weakens and becomes a shva. 
 
Thus the word for prophet, navi becomes nebiim. The qamatz that stands  
under the nun in navi weakens and is replaced with shva, a non-vowel. But 
since 
 the combination nun bet is hard to say, the shva takes on a touch of vowel 
 coloring and become a vocal shva. In practice is it pronounced as an "e". 
But it  is not that the "a" become an "e" in the plural, rather that the "a" 
disappears  as the accent in the word shift toward the back in the plural. 
 
Likewise for the word El (God), the initial aleph, takes a sere, a  long e 
sound. But when el is lengthened into a plural, and becomes elohim, the  
accent shifts to the end of the word and the vowel at the beginning of the 
word 
 is weakened into a shva.
 
Further since the first letter of elohim is aleph, it follows special rules 
 for the gutterals, (Gesenius explains this) and becomes a seghol hateph, 
one of  the three special forms of shva used with gutterals. Ditto with 
Adonai. Adon has  a qamatz under the initial aleph, but Adonai has a compound 
shva (patach  hateph).
 
Non gutterals never take compound shvas. Not patach hateph, not seghol  
hateph, not qamatz hateph.
 
Likewise, yod never carries a compound shva. Yod  always takes a simple 
shva. 
 
The fact that Adonai has a compound shva and the MT texts of YHWH have a  
simple shva is not evidence of a different vowel. It is the same vowel, 
applied  to a different letter. 
 
Hope that helps...
Ted Brownstein

 
In a message dated 12/28/2009 8:50:18 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
nebarry AT verizon.net writes:

--------------------------------------------------
From:  <tedbro AT aol.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 26, 2009 10:36 PM
To:  <dbelot AT bigpond.net.au>; <jaihare AT gmail.com>;  
<b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Vowel  Subsitution

This message is in response to Ted Brownstein, but first a  brief 
introduction:

Barry Hofstetter.  I have been a member of  b-Greek for several years now, 
as 
well as owning and moderating the  bibexegesis and b-Latin lists at 
yahoogroups.  When perusing the  archives, I recognized some names from 
those 
lists, as well as the  Biblical Studies list!  I currently teach Classics 
and  
Bible-Catechism at The American Academy, and Roman Civilization at  
Montclair 
State University.  More information can be found at my web  and blog sites, 
listed in my sig below.

Ted, thanks for your clear  explanations concerning the tetragrammaton and 
the ketiv-qere.   Nehemiah Gordon, in the online text that the earlier 
poster 
linked, makes  a big deal out of the fact that the actual pointing for YHWH 
is different  from that for the actual noun Adonai.  Now, my reading 
ability 
in  Hebrew isn't too shabby, but I'm a bit fuzzy on the rules for vowel  
pointing in every context.  Could you, or anyone else, explain the  reason 
for this particular difference?

Thanks,

N.E. Barry  Hofstetter