Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 1:08 AM, Ronald Monestime wrote:
>
> Is there a particular reason why some constructs, even identical ones, use 
> a maqqef while others
> do not. For example I have done a study on the expression "servant of God" 
> (ebed Yawheh) and
> some of those expressions have the maqqef, while other identical ones do 
> not.
> With maqqef:Deu 34:5Jos 1:13Jos 8:31Jos 8:33Jos 12:6Jos 14:7Jos 22:52Ch 
> 1:32Ch 24:6
> Without maqqef:Jos 1:1Jos 1:15Jos 11:12Jos 13:8Jos 18:7Jos 22:2Jos 22:4Jos 
> 24:29Jdg 2:82Ki 18:12

In all the cases you gave for with maqqef vs without maqqef, in the
with maqqef examples, the
preceding word has a conjunctive cantillation mark whereas in the
without maqqef it has a
disjunctive one.  This suggests that in the with-maqqef cases the
maqqef is there to create
a united element to which the preceding word is conjoined.

The maqqef essentially means that the two words are spoken as one
word, and there is only
one primary stress, the word with the maqqef getting secondary stress at most.

You can read about the cantillation marks here:
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~hr/teamim/

By the way, in some of the cases above, a comma between examples would
have helped.

Anyway, the meaning to be attached to the maqqef is first one of
sentence structure as in
these examples.

Yitzhak Sapir