Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

pere,

the tanakh is full with examples, maybe the main value of this
answer is to cite some of them. the final H has several distinct 
uses. the main one is:

1) feminime ending (i$-i$ah); feminine ending "her": 
melex-malkah  (ex: isa 37: 36 leho$i(ah etc
etc etc)  (oxitono) and feminine verb ending ($abar-$abrah).

the others include:

2) pairs of male-female almost synonyms: or-orah, geva/-giv/ah, 
shir-shirah etc (oxitono) with always a shade of difference. according to
bible male chauvinism, the second is an elaboration of the first: dag is fish
and dagah (gen 1:28) is fishery. in modern hebrew this has been extended, e.x.
lev=heart, libah=core. in this light also BH gev-gviah (gen 47:19). and the
false but nice connection mat(english)-mitah(hebrew). semitic prs=horse-->BH
parsah, though isaak might claim otherwise. here one should also consider
xet-xata)t (vaikra 16:3): xet is the original
word and xata)t (sacrifice) is the derived one. same as qitor-qtoret 
(vaikra 16:12), also with feminine ending. lail-lailah became 
true synonymous, though i suspect originally lailah fell under 
item 3 below.

the feminine form may be more connected to emotional level.
thus, shir, or are the primary objects and shirah, orah may 
be used in personal connotations.

3) "towards" or direction of movement: har-haharah, yam-yamah, 
kedem-kedmah, mizraimah, etc. (ex: gen 42:28: $eolah, 2kings 14:19 laxi$ah,
isa 38:13 lailah, judges 4:9 qed$a, gen 25 haborah). timna-timnatah (gen
38:14) (paroxitono)

4) for verbs, form of imperative: sur-surah, $ev-$vah, 
(ex: gen 43:8, $ilxah+nakumah+nelexah). a way of distinguishing 
imperative from future tense, a respectful way of speach etc.

5) isa 37:38 hem-hemah, dvarim 25:9 kax-kaxah (paroxitono).

6) an object with a given property: (ram (high) -ramah (plateau), jer 50:1)
(oxitono)

examples for these cases in BH abound.

the more difficult ones i leave for issac: for example, 
Josh 24:16 xalil-xalilah; har-harah, naxal-naxalah, adam-adamah, 
xerem-xormah-xermon (josh 12), and, yes, two names of god.

as to the antiquity question, i am sure that this has been 
studied before. i suppose that the use of most exceptional 
-ah forms, except for item 5, stopped when (or before) 
aramaic became used, since -ah in aramaic has a totally different function. 
job contains many cases :vaimaltah (1:16), lailah (3:7), ha$amaimah (2:13) etc
etc. so does songs. leafing in nehemiah or esther i could not see any such
case! zacharias just uses hemah and not the other cases. 

i am not familiar with the data on a possible time frame for job, but in 
view of this i would bet it is essentially pre-aramaic, in spite of containing
one or two aramaic words like "nehorah" for light.

the forms hema, hena (for "they") has a perfect parallel in arabic. 

regards
nir cohen

----------------

> Hi, friends.
We find here and there in the biblical text some words that appear in two
versions: without H and with H.

> 1 Nouns:
In Gn 1:3 we have )WR, light; in Est 8:16 we have )WRFH, light.

> 2. Verbs:
In 2Sa 2:22 we have SWR, turn aside! while in Rt 4:1 we have SWRFH, same
meaning.

> They appear as being quite and mere synonyms.

> My questions are:

> 1. Are they really synonyms? Does the suffix H introduce some shade into the
meaning of the word that has H compared with the word that lacks H?

> 2. Do you know of other similar pairs, either nouns or verbs?

> 3. Would there be a good reason for these variants? I mean: maybe some
evolution of the language (older writings like Genesis versus newer writings
like Esther or 2Samuel versus Ruth) would explain this difference?

-- 
Pere Porta
(Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)


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