From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>Interrogative H comes with different pointing from the article H. The article is nearly always H with patah followed by dagesh in the following letter, or is lengthened to H with qamats or sometimes segol if the following letter cannot take dagesh - but not always lengthened before he and het. Interrogative H usually has hataf patah or patah with no following dagesh. And so in most cases there is no ambiguity in a pointed text, although I think there may be before he and het.
HH: There are grammatical and stylistic reasons. The "H" on the beginning
of XZQ and RPH is an interrogative particle.
Follow-up question, Harold...
How can one tell that the "H" is supposed to represent an interrogative
particle in this case? For instance, I read that the "H" can also signify
the article "the". How do you know when the "H" is indicating a question
and when it is simply used as an article?
Case in point... the "H" is used on the beginning of RPH a number of times
in 2 Samuel 21 (vv. 16, 18, 20, 22) where it is translated "the Rapha" (the
weak one). What is the distinction in this case?
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