Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

> In Jr 30:14 we have $:K"XWK, they forgot you (female).
> Why this tsere for the usual qamats (see a sample with qamats
> in Ez 23:24)?
>
> Is it because of the presence of letter Xet?

In general, when you find verbs with object suffixes where a 'qal' vowel
has shifted to 'i', 'e', 'o', or 'u', it is because the MT is preserving an
archaic stative form.
[aside--not directly related to the stative explanation--
Tsere instead of pataH/qamats has nothing to do with the Het, though the
tsere in place of Hiriq may indeed reflect a lowering of tongue height
because of the retracted tongue root of the pharygeal fricative. However,
because this is in an open syllable, even a Hiriq {cf. Ps 2.7} would have
lowered to tsere, anyway. So the Het truly has nothing to do with this
particular form.]

Let's check on the stative explanation.
To test if this stative explanation is the case here, one can check
cognate languages (but Arabic isn't helpful for this word), and if
enough forms occur in the MT, one can check other potential
examples in the MT.
With shakaH we have a few confirming examples that the stative
explanation is correct. E.g. Prov 2.17, as well as Jer 2.32, 18.15, Hos
4.6, Job 19.14.
If this were not enough, we have the stative part/adj form shakeaH in
Is 65.11 and Ps 9.18 to support the 'stative' pedigree of this word, though
there are also two 'regular'/non-stative participles at Ps 50.22 and Job 8.13.

So Jer 30.14 shxeHux preserves a stative vocalization.

Randall Buth

--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
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