Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Barry" <nebarry AT verizon.net>]

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From: <tedbro AT aol.com>
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2009 9:28 AM
To: <nebarry AT verizon.net>; <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Vowel Subsitution

> Hi, Barry:

Greetings, and thanks for the response.  Commentariis interspersis infra:

> 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.

Right, I get that.

> 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.

So far, so good.

> 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.

Ok.

> 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).

I actually remember all this.

> 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.

Ok, maybe I'm failing to make a connection here.  We pronounce the qere. 
Are you saying because the initial vowel for Adonai, the patach hateph, is 
written under the yod for YHWH, it changes to a simple sheva?  It sounds 
like you are saying that even though the qere is Adonai, the visual 
orthography trumps the actual pronunciation, as though the initial vowel of 
Adonai were a yod rather than an aleph?

N.E. Barry Hofstetter

Fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te...
   -- Augustine, Confessions 1:1

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