Well, I think it is so The dagesh, which I believe to be a pre NIKUD
reading hinter, is not needed in plene writing. Indeed, SIYM is
routinely written in full, and consequently with no dagesh, as the
יְשִׂימָם YSIYMAM of Deut. 7:15. But in 2Ki 13:7 it is
וַיְשִׂמֵם WAYSIMEM, and still with no dagesh. This means, I
think, that at the time the dgeshim were introduced into the biblical
text the word was written plene with a Y, which was lost later on.
A similar fate befell the letter W of UGAB of Ps. 150:4, and hence
the lack of a dagesh in the letter B following a qubuc.
I think that there were two systems of dgeshim that got mixed
together in our present text. In one system, a dot was placed after a
qubuc, a patax or a xiriq even in a letter not followed by a vowel,
for example, סִתְּמוּם SITMUM of Gen. 26:15 and
וַיְסַתְּמוּם WAYSATMUM of Gen. 26:18. In the other
system, a dagesh is not placed in a letter marked now by a schwa, for
instance, וַאֲמֻשְׁךָ WA-AMU$KA of Gen. 27:21.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On May 10, 2012, at 11:33 AM, Isaac Fried wrote:
Why there is no dot in the first letter M of וַיְשִׂמֵם
WAYSIMEM I don't know.