Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Chris Watts <dekruidnootjes AT eircom.net>]

Karl I am relieved you said that.  I came to a conclusion just about  
a month ago that that these pronounciations merely reflected one  
moment in one time.  The grammar books and commentaries treat every  
point as though it were an infallible static pronounciation set since  
the foundation of the world!  And that deviations have to be  
explained grammatically as long as that vowel point stays there.  I  
came to an uneasy conclusion myself that these points are more  
guidelines rather than set in stone.  So what if I pronounce a tsere  
like a seghol or a patach like a chametz?  It does not matter one  
bit, because language is fluid, and there coexists quite happily  
different pronounciations within a single language.  Biblical hebrew  
is not taught in any of the books like this, in fact they way they go  
on and on about a single solitary vowel and the necessity to lengthen  
this because that is in pause and that affects the short vowel which  
now dissappears and it takes half a page to explain became burdensome  
claptrap quite honestly.  It has been many years before I came to  
this realisation and must say that much of the stress has gone from  
previous years.  This is why I posted the question some time ago  
about the pronounciation of Jerusalem when there was an artificial  
hireq placed at the end to form a dual so that one says Yerushalyim  
instead of Yerushalem, which the latter makes for better meaning  
anyway.  I do not question that this was how it was pronounced when  
the hebrew grammarians pointed it in their day, but I do not believe  
that this was how it was originally pronounced at the time when the  
scribes were composing and writing the various books.  (Apart from a  
couple of instances if I remember correctly).  I also learned from a  
rabbi (and this was an eye opener) that the vowel pointing does not  
even reflect everyday pronounciation even at he time of the  
masoretes, it is for the most part a liturgical device, a musical  
device and poetic device.  So Yerushalyim is great when you sing it,  
but yerushalem kind of ends the rythmic feel too abruptly in music.   
Now the vowel pointing makes more sense for when I hit a seghol and  
think hey, that does not sound right, it feels awkward on my lips and  
clumsy.......

So back to the Hiphil.  How would a hiphil imperative be translated  
here anyway, I simply am not knowledgeable enough to be able to do  
this. I can not even guess at it.  In essence how can any hiphil be  
an imperative when the hiphil relects a causative aspect in a  
sentence?  (realising that some hiphils are not strictly causation).  
how can you cause something in an imperative fashion, does not make  
sense at all.

Chris Watts
Ireland

Chris Watts
Ireland



On 9 Jul 2013, at 16:36, K Randolph wrote:

Chris:

You can’t trust the Masoretic points.

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 3:22 AM, Chris Watts  
<dekruidnootjes AT eircom.net>wrote:

> Hallo Pere, well firstly I recognised that the heh holem vav is
> indicative of an imperative and the heh a hiphil, then the tsere
> under the tsadi instead of a hireq.  I was surprised so I checked B.
> Davidsons's hebrew analytical lexicon and there is written this word
> idicating it as an imperative hiphil?  Also I checked my personal
> grammar under the assumption that this verb would qualify as a Pe Vav/
> Pe Yod.

The unpointed consonantal text can be read either as a hiphil or hophal
first person singular verb. As hiphil it has the reading “I cause to  
exit”,
i.e. bring out, which best fits the context.

If this is pointed as an imperative, then you need to be able to step  
out
and say that this doesn’t make sense, how else could it have been  
pointed
to make sense? Then go with that.

> Chris Watts
> Ireland

Karl W. Randolph.