Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Gary:

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 7:33 PM, Hedrick Gary <GaryH AT cjfm.org> wrote:

 לקץ הימין

Why does the Hebrew text of Daniel 12:13 have qetz hayamin (with a final nun) instead of qetz hayamim (with a mem at the end). Shouldn't "end of days" be qetz hayamim?

Yes, you are right if the text means “end of days” which the context seems to indicate.

It’s possible that this is a copyist error, that early on, before Jewish copyists adopted the Aramaic square characters, someone mistook a mem for a nun. In archaic Hebrew script, those two characters looked quite similar, and if someone was not careful, one could be mistaken for the other.

It’s possible that the error came as late as to show up in the DSS, but I think less likely. 

Gary Hedrick

San Antonio, Texas USA

On the other hand, I don’t understand this passage. It’s possible that he meant to go to the right side. But I don’t know what that means either.

Karl W. Randolph.