Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yigal:

Jeremiah 6:21 has רעו R(W and he was pre-Exile and Southern, but to be
balanced, he used רעהו R(HW 13 times. It could be that רעו R(W was a
recognized “low-life” use that may have been used for centuries, just not
recognized as being “literary” (in the same manner as “aint” in English has
been used for centuries, but is still not “respectable”).

רעו R(W is never found in a “northern” context in Tanakh.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 8:55 PM, Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> wrote:

> Dear Chavoux,
>
> The claim made in your book seems to be correct. Based on the (not all that
> many) inscriptions that we have, it would seem that the preferred Yahwistic
> abbreviated form in Iron-Age northern Israel was indeed YW, while the
> Judahite equivalent was YHW. Strangely enough, in post-exilic times, the
> form YH was used in both Judah and Samaria.
>
> …
>
> Interestingly enough, in the most recent issue of Israel Exploration
> Journal
> - 60,2 (2011), pp. 188-203, Gary Rendsburg and Bill Schniedewind suggested
> that such features as the spelling R(W "his fellow" - instead of the
> expected R(HW - in the  Siloam tunnel inscription might mean that the
> writers, and thus also the workmen who dug the tunnel itself, were northern
> Israelite refugees who had come to Jerusalem.
>
> Yigal Levin