45 This account is based on Florentin (2016, 74). Cross and Freedman (1952, 47) note that "[o]nly in a dialect in which the diphthong *ay* was preserved, would a form *-aw < \*-ayhu* result." Given Samarian ינ *yn*  'wine', presumably realised [yeːn] (cf. Tiberian [ˈyaːyin]), *-ehu* < \**-ayhu* in the north. However, with קצ *qṣ* 'summer fruit', presumably realised [qeːsˤ] (cf. Tiberian ץ ִי ַקˈ] qaːjisˤ]), at Gezer, a mere six miles (9.6 km) north and 20.5 miles (33 km) west of Jerusalem, it seems that diphthong contraction was not limited to the dialect of the far north.

A further conjectural process may be mentioned. The evolution

\**-aw < \*-ayw < \*-ayhu*

has been proposed, ostensibly furnishing a rather straightforward account of both the יו- orthography and the Tiberian [-ɔːv] realisation.46 It must be said, though, that this developmental sequence involves the assumption of two rather arbitrary steps elision of *heh* after a consonant (diphthong) and contraction of the triphthong \**-ayw* to *\*-aw*. With neither standard in ancient Hebrew, it seems improbable that both would take place.47 An

47 In agreement with Florentin (2017, 73–74). Florentin has proposed a motivation for development of the *-aw* realisation. He assumes a base form \**-ayhu* leading to the rarely preserved יהוְ ֵ-] -eːhuː]. He then notes that the respective singular and plural forms of III-*y* substantives with the 3ms suffix are phonetically identical: הו ש ֲע ַמ' his deed' and יהו ש ֲע ַמ 'his deeds' both [maːʕaˈseːhuː]. By means of the standard contraction of the diphthong *ay* and elision of *heh \*-eyu* < \**-ayhu*. But since *\*-eyu* was too similar to the 3ms suffix for singulars, *-ehu*, language users intentionally opted for a discernible alternative, namely \**-aw* < *\*-ahu* < \**-ayhu*, thereby rendering the distinction between singulars and plurals transparent. From the sizeable minority of III-*y* forms the *-aw* suffix spread to others, becoming dominant. This approach satisfies on several levels. First, it gives due weight to much of the evidence, seeking to explain both the יהו ֵ-] -eːhuː] and -*aw* spellings and realisations and linking both of them back to \**-ayhu*. Second, it posits motivation for what must be seen as non-standard developments in the development of -*aw*. However, concerned mainly with explaining the phonetic forms in the Tiberian tradition, it is unfortunate that Florentin does not discuss the potential for phonetic variety in the inscriptional sources, the

46 Blau (2010, 172); Zevit (1980, 29–30).

alternative solution involving more likely processes is preferable. Without such a solution, it is very difficult to explain both the spelling יו- and phonetic realisations reflecting *-aw* as results of one and the same process.48 The combined weight of the evidence arguably points to the plausibility of a phonetic realisation behind יו- different from pre-Tiberian *-aw* and its later reflexes.

One final perspective to consider is the explanatory value of the approach, especially with regard to the distribution of the various spellings in Second Temple sources and in the MT itself. In what may have more significance than is sometimes thought, biblical and non-biblical manuscripts from late antiquity show various mixtures of forms. In the non-biblical DSS, the ו- ending occurs without *yod* in nearly 12 percent of the relevant cases of nouns (56 of 473),49 in the biblical DSS the proportion is just over

DSS, or in the MT itself, nor make explicit his view of the strange relationship between orthographical יו- and phonetic [-ɔːv].

48 Barkay et al. (2004, 54). Also worthy of consideration as an explanation for the orthography יו-, but not the spelling ו- or for phonetic realisations deriving from *-aw*, is the entirely conjectural possibility that triphthongal \**-ayyu < \*-ayhu*, postulating assimilation of *heh* to the preceding *yod* (cf., e.g., תו ַׁל מ ג Tiberian [gamɔːˈlattuː] < *gamalathu* [1 Sam. 1.24]).

49 CD 10.9; 1QS 3.7–8; 6.17; 11.3; 1QSa 1.18, 22; 1QpHab 3.7; 5.5; 9.1; 1QHa 4.37; 4Q163 f4–7i.8; 4Q200 f6.3; 4Q216 5.3, 9; 4Q221 f1.2; f3.5; f5.2; 4Q228 f1i.4; 4Q255 f2.2, 6; 4Q261 f1a–b.3; 4Q262 fB.1–2; 4Q266 f2i.4; f2ii.2, 4; f5ii.2, 4; f6iii.8; 4Q270 f6iv.14, 19; 4Q299 f3c.6; 4Q365 f12biii.5; f26a–b.8; 4Q374 f2ii.8; 4Q381 f31.3; 4Q387 f2iii.1; 4Q392 f1.4–5, 9; 4Q398 f14–17ii.4, 7; 4Q403 f1i.43; 4Q404 f5.6; 4Q405 f15ii– 16.4; f20ii–22.7; f23i.13; 4Q417 f29i.7; 4Q418 f16.4; 4Q434 f1i.7; 4Q468b f1.2; 4Q472 f1.4; 4Q481d f3.2; 11Q17 7.6; 10.5.

7 percent (25 of 347).50 In the MT there are some 125 instances involving nouns,51 coming to about 5 percent of the potential 2500 cases. While various explanations could be offered for these minority spellings,52 it is here argued that the possibility that at least some reflect actual phonological variation in the realisation of the suffix should not be dismissed out of hand. It may well be that in some of these instances in the MT, many of which are marked as *ketiv-qere* mismatches, the disparity reflects *morphological*, rather than *phonological*, disagreement between the consonantal and pronunciation traditions. Thus, for instance, in ְא ש ִי ַו form *ketiv* the ,)9.22 .Lev MT (אַ הֲ ר ִ ןְאֶ ת־י ד ָ יוְ]כתיבְ:ידו[ְאֶ ל־ה ע ִ םְוַ ָ ּי ב ר כ ֶם ידו is ambiguous—it may represent a form parallel to Tiberian dual [jɔːˈðɔːv] 'his hands', but may just as well reflect a singular

50 1QIsaa 1.28; 11.29; 23.2; 27.23; 2Q16 f5ii–6i.1; 4Q32 f2ii+3i+4.19; 4Q56 f3ii.15; 4Q86 2.13; 4Q93 1.9; 4Q98f f1–2.1; 4Q114 1.3; 4Q128 f1.21, 29; 4Q138 f1.2, 9, 11; 4Q140 f1.26; 11Q1 fK–Li.7; 11Q5 4.15; Mur88 8.16.

51 Exod. 27.11; 28.28; 32.19; 37.8; 39.4, 33; Lev. 9.22; 16.21; Deut. 2.33; 7.9; 8.2; 33.9; Josh. 16.3; 1 Sam. 3.2; 8.3; 10.21; 23.5; 26.7, 11, 16; 30.6; 2 Sam. 1.11; 12.9, 20; 13.34; 18.17, 18; 19.19; 22.23; 24.14, 22; 1 Kgs 5.17; 6.38; 16.19; 18.42; 2 Kgs 4.34; 5.9; 11.18; 14.12; Jer. 17.10, 11; 22.4; 32.4; Ezek. 17.21; 18.21, 24; 31.5; 33.13, 16; 37.16, 19; 40.6, 9, 21 (3x), 22 (4x), 24 (2x), 25, 26 (3x), 29 (4x), 31 (2x), 33 (4x), 34 (3x), 36 (3x), 37 (3x); 43.11, 26; 44.5; 47.11; Amos 9.6; Obad. 1.11; Hab. 3.14; Ps. 10.5; 58.8; 105.18, 28 (?); 106.45; 147.19; 148.2; Job 5.18; 14.5; 20.11; 21.20; 26.14; 27.15; 31.20; 37.12; 38.41; 39.26, 30; 40.17; Prov. 16.27; 21.29; 22.25; 26.24; 30.10; Ruth 3.14; Qoh. 4.8; 5.17; Lam. 3.32, 39; Dan. 9.12; 11.10; Ezra 4.7.

52 See, by way of illustration, the useful examples in Golinets (forthcoming, 1–6).

parallel to Tiberian [jɔːˈðoː] 'his hand'; if the latter, the *qere* contradicts the *ketiv* semantically. Further, in nearly every case it is possible that the *yod* of the majority spelling was simply omitted ו ס מַ ךְאַ הֲ ר ֹ ןְאֶ ת־ש ת יְי ד ׁ יוְ in ידו *ketiv* the ,example for ,that so ,error in necessarily not does) 16.21 .Lev MT[ (כתיבְ:ידו[ְעַ לְר אשְהַ ש עִ יר ְהַ חַ יֹ serve as orthographic evidence of a diphthongal rather than triphthongal realisation. These considerations apply to the aforementioned DSS evidence as well.

Be that as it may, it seems unlikely that morphological ambiguity and simple spelling inconsistency are sufficient to account for the totality of cases in which the 3ms suffix spelling וoccurs instead of the more customary יו-. In MT Ezekiel ו- appears instead of יו- in 46 of 176 cases (26 percent of the time) and in chapter 40 alone ו- comes without *yod* 34 times. Job also exhibits use of the suffix nearly 10 percent of the time (12 of 122 cases). When we bear in mind other discrepancies between the Tiberian written and reading traditions, e.g., the aforementioned 2ms endings ת- and ך- and Tiberian [*-*tɔː] and [*-*xɔː], respectively, positing a similar mismatch between consonantal יו- and Tiberian [-ɔːv] helps to account for a degree of variation otherwise difficult to explain.

If the foregoing reading of the evidence is correct, it assumes a rather curious developmental sequence leading up to the spelling and phonetic realisation of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition:

(1) a situation of mixed use of diphthongal and triphthongal phonological realisations and spelling, i.e., ו- *-aw* and יו- *-ayu/-eyu*;

53 Albright (1943, 22, n. 27) argues that ירחו in the Gezer Calendar ends in *-êw*, comparing to "the archaic uncontracted form *-êhu* which appears a number of times in Hebrew poetry" (see Bauer and Leander 1918– 1922, §28v). Tiberian *-aw* he explains (ibid.) as "an obvious conformation to the parallel Aramaic suffix which appears in Bib. Aram. as *-ôhi* and in Syriac as *-auhi* (written) and *-au* (pronounced)." Cross and Freedman (1952, 47, 54–55, 68–9) view Masoretic יו- as "reminiscent" (47) of North Israelite *-êw* and Tiberian *-aw* as Judahite. Pardee (1988, 179–80) objects, asking why this northern feature, and no other, should figure so prominently in the Tiberian reading tradition. Without denying an areal explanation, I am content with a more general view of variety in ancient Hebrew, incorporating such parameters as register, region, urban versus rural, diachrony, sociolect, and idiolect.

54 Presumably, some of the forms left without *yod* are the results of simple inconsistency in the revision or were read as suffixes for singulars. However, if *yod* was added to reflect a triphthongal realisation, then it is possible that it was intentionally left out of forms where, according to the reading tradition, a diphthong was intended.

Masoretic textual tradition, which involved the 'correction', by means of explicit *ketiv-qere* notation (from ו- to יו- ( or via simple vocalisation (with [-ɔːv]), of forms one might be inclined to read otherwise, sometimes extended, significantly, to forms that do not end in the 3ms suffix in question.

#### **4.0. CLOSING REMARKS**

Dissonance between written and reading traditions is an acknowledged feature of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition, the authenticity and antiquity of each supported by contemporary Hebrew and cognate material. The only question regards the extent of the mismatch, i.e., its applicability and explanatory value with regard to individual features. It has been argued here that such a perspective helps to explain two vocalisation phenomena as relatively early, organic developments, rather than anachronistic post-biblicisms artificially visited upon BH. These may be added to a series of over twenty instances or categories of instances involving similar written-reading dissonance within the Tiberian tradition. The ramifications go beyond the phonetic realisations of the specific features in question, encompassing such issues as the antiquity, authenticity, and reliability of the testimony of the Tiberian reading tradition. Crucially, precisely at those points where there is the most compelling reason to suspect anachronism and artificiality on the part of the vocalisation tradition, i.e., where it deviates from a consonantal tradition generally accorded greater antiquity, the reading tradition is seen to reflect ancient and natural linguistic conventions in line with Second Temple or earlier practices.

#### **5.0. REFERENCES**

Words of the Pentateuch. Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language (in Hebrew).

*Society* 94: 307–15 (an abridged translation of 'Ha-Masoret ha-Ṭavranit šel Lešon ha-Miqra: Homogeniyut ve-Heṭerogeniyut'. *Peraqim—Sefer ha-Šana šel Mekon Šoqen* 2 [1974]: 105–44).

———. 2006. 'Navigating the Epigraphic Storm: A Palaeographer Reflects on Inscriptions from the Market'. *Near Eastern Archaeology* 68: 69–72.

## *QERE* **AND** *KETIV* **IN THE EXEGESIS OF THE KARAITES AND SAADYA GAON**

## *Joseph Habib*

————————————————————————————

#### **1.0. INTRODUCTION**

During the approximate period 500–950 CE, the Tiberian Masoretes set out to commit to writing the accepted reading tradition of the Hebrew Bible.1 In order to facilitate this preservation, they invented a number of graphic symbols to represent the reading tradition as accurately as possible. These symbols were mapped onto the letters of the received consonantal text. The consonantal text adopted by the Tiberian Masoretes was one that, from a very early period, had been transmitted within mainstream Judaism

1 See Yeivin (1980, 1–4, 49–80). To be sure, the process of precise transmission of the Biblical Text far predates the Tiberian Masoretes. M. Avot 1.1 states that Moses transmitted (ה ָר ָס ְומ (the Torah to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, etc. Thus, from its very inception, it was necessary to pass on the text, via an oral tradition, accurately. Hence Dotan's (2007, 606) statement, "The transmission of the Bible is as old as the Bible itself." In this regard, Lea Himmelfarb (2007) concludes that the first Masoretes were, in fact, the Temple priests, who regularly engaged in the reading, teaching, and copying of the text.

with great care.2 One important component of the preservation of the text was safeguarding the correct pronunciation of the consonantal text. The Tiberian Masoretes thus invented the vocalisation signs in order to ensure accurate pronunciation of the text.3 As a general rule, the consonants and the vocalisation signs are

3 The other components of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition are the layout of the text, divisions of paragraphs, the accent signs, the notes of the text written in the margin, and Masoretic treatises, which were sometimes appended to the end of manuscripts (Khan 2013, 3).

2 The need for an exemplary scroll made itself felt after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, when an authoritative text could serve as a unifying element to the Jewish community (Contreras and De Los Ríos-Zarzosa 2010, 28). The Babylonian Talmud also reflects an early concern for the transmission of an accurate text. *Moʿed Qaṭan* 18b prohibits tampering with the "scroll of Ezra" (עזרא ספר (on particular festival days. *Ketubot* 106a mentions "proof-readers of the scrolls in Jerusalem" (שבירושלים ספרים מגיהי(. According to *Qiddushin* 30a, there was also an awareness among the Babylonian sages that the authoritative text was located in Jerusalem (Khan 2013, 15–16). Qumran also reflects a situation whereby, as early as the Second Temple period, there was already an established (consonantal) text among mainstream Judaism. According to Tov's latest estimation, 48 percent of Torah texts reflect the Masoretic Text (MT). Of the remaining portions of scripture, 44 percent reflect the MT, while 49 percent form the so-called 'non-aligned' group (Tov 2012, 108). Thus, even among the multiplicity of recensions at Qumran—a community not aligned with mainstream Judaism—a text-type that reflects the MT predominated. This strongly suggests that the situation was similar elsewhere in Palestine, although this cannot be verified (cf. Khan 2013, 22–24).

in harmony. In a number of places within the Hebrew Bible, however, the consonantal text and the vocalisation signs reflect two different reading traditions of a particular word or phrase.4

During the process of supplying the consonantal text with the vocalisation signs, such differences between the received consonantal text and the orally transmitted reading tradition became apparent. One clear example was the divine name. Since uttering the form of the name reflected by the consonantal text was prohibited, the consonantal text יהוה was read י ָנֹד ֲא. The result was the form ה ָהוְי, in which the vocalisation prompted the reading [ʔaðoːˈnɔːj] instead of that reflected by the consonantal text. Another example is the word written with the consonants עפלים' tumours (?)' (Deut. 28.27; 1 Sam. 5.6, 9, 12). In these places, the reading tradition requires the word ים ִרֹח ְט' haemorrhoids' instead, since it was considered less crass. Superimposing the vowels of ים ִרֹח ְט on the consonants עפלים was not, however, considered to be sufficient to trigger the memory of the reader to pronounce ים ִרֹח ְט, since this conflict between the consonantal text and the

4 Yochanan Breuer (1991, 191), also considering the cantillation marks, והנה, אף על פי שבדרך כלל הקשר בין שלושת היסודות האלה הוא באמת ,remarks הדוק, ובנוסח המקרא שבידינו הם הפכו להיות מקשה אחת, מצאנו לעתים שכל אחד נפרדת בדרך הולך מהם' Indeed, even though the connection between these three elements is generally tight, and in our version of the Bible they became a unity, we sometimes find that each one of them goes its own separate way'. See also Hornkohl's contribution to the present volume.

oral reading only occurs four times, compared with the 6,828 occurrences of the divine name.5 Thus, a different method for maintaining the written tradition while indicating the oral reading tradition was necessary. In the Aleppo Codex, the consonantal form ובעפלים) Deut. 28.27) is pointed with the vowels of ים ִ ִרֹח ְטּ וב, and an accompanying marginal note instructs ובטחרים קרי' ובטחרים [wuvattˁoħoːʀiːm] is read'. The oral reading tradition reflected by the vocalisation was known in the Masoretic tradition as *qere* '(what is) read' and the written tradition of the received consonantal text was known as *ketiv* '(what is) written'.

Modern research on the phenomenon of *qere* and *ketiv* has been concerned primarily with tracing the origins and motivation for differences between the *qere* and *ketiv* and with classifying these differences according to various criteria (e.g., morphological, syntactic, euphemistic, etc.).6 I adopt here the view of scholars such as Barr (1981), Breuer (1997), and Ofer (2019, 85–107), according to which the *qere* and the *ketiv* represented parallel traditions. The question arises as to whether both traditions were considered equally authoritative or whether the *qere* was regarded as more authoritative than the *ketiv*. In the Talmudic period a practice developed of interpreting Scripture on two levels, one according to the consonantal text (*ketiv*) and one according to the way it was read (*qere*). This is reflected in the Talmudic and authority has reading The 'יש אם למקרא ויש אם למסורת dictum

5 Ofer (2019, 21).

6 For a helpful and concise overview of *qere*/*ketiv* scholarship, see Ofer (2009, 271ff.); Contreras (2013, 449–53).

the traditional text has authority' (Naeh 1992; 1993). Some medieval Karaite scholars, e.g., al-Qirqisānī (Khan 1990a), objected to this practice and recognized the authority of only the reading tradition. In the Middle Ages the Karaites also produced Arabic transcriptions of the Bible that represented only the *qere* (Khan 1992). Some medieval Karaite scholars did, however, accept the possibility of interpreting according to the *ketiv* where it conflicted with the *qere*, e.g., the lexicographer al-Fāsi in his *Kitāb Jāmiʿ al-ʾAlfāz* (ed. Skoss 1936, vol. 1, 12–13) and Hadassi (Bacher 1895, 113).

In this paper I shall explore whether and to what extent the early medieval Karaite exegetes and Saadya regarded both the *qere* and the *ketiv* as authoritative bases of their interpretation of Scripture.

#### **2.0. PURPOSE AND METHODOLOGY**

I present here my findings with regard to the extent to which the differences between the *qere* and the *ketiv* are reflected in the exegetical works of the medieval Karaites and Saadya Gaon. A search in Accordance Bible Software for every instance of the *qere*/*ketiv* in the Hebrew Bible yielded 1,384 hits, from among which I chose samples that were relevant for my investigation. In choosing examples of *qere*/*ketiv* to analyse, it was necessary that some restrictions were in place. First, I chose only examples from biblical books for which the translations and/or commentaries of Saadya and at least one or two medieval Karaite scholars are extant. The main limitation was that the extant commentaries and translation of Saadya do not include the entire Bible.7 Second, I chose only examples of differences between *qere* and *ketiv* that reflected differences in meaning. Consider the following example:

```
כִּ י־מִ י אֲ שׁ ר יבחר ]יְח בּ ִ ר[ א ֶ ל כָּ ל־ה ח יִּ ים י שׁ בִּ טָּ ח֑ ון... (1)
       'For, whoever is joined to life has hope…' (Eccl. 9.4a)8
```
In this example, the *qere* is from the Hebrew root ר"חב, which signifies the 'joining' of one person or thing to another. The *ketiv*, however, is from the root ר"בח, which signifies 'choosing'. In my translation above, as in most English Bibles, I translated the halfverse according to the *qere*. As will be shown below, a translation of this half-verse according to the *ketiv* would also make perfect sense: 'For, whoever chooses life has hope.'

In considering examples which make a difference in meaning, two additional caveats applied. First, *qere/ketiv* pairs that differ in agreement between subject and verb, as well as in regard to the antecedents of pronominal/object suffixes were excluded.

7 The extant portions include the Pentateuch, Isaiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, and Ezekiel (see Zewi 2015, 31 n. 30).

8 In this and following examples, the *ketiv* appears unvocalised, and the *qere* appears vocalised in brackets. In my translations that follow each example, I translate according to the *qere*. In Gordis's (1971, 152) rubric 'Unclassified KQ (=*ketiv/qere*)', this verse appears in the list 'Q preferable to K'. This verse does not appear in Cohen's (2007, 7–11) recent work on *qere* and *ketiv*, the corpus of which was limited to the Pentateuch and Former Prophets.

The reason for this is that the rules governing agreement in Arabic and Biblical Hebrew differ sufficiently that it could not be said for certain whether the Arabic translations of Saadya and the Karaites reflected one of the two options. For example:

וְ עָ נ ו וְ אָמְ ר֑ ו יָד ֵ ינו ל ֹֹ א שפכה ]שָׁ פְ כו [ א ת־ה דָּ ם ה זּ ִ ה׃ (2) 'And they will testify and say, "Our hands did not shed this blood"' (Deut. 21.7)

Here, the *qere* indicates that the reading of this verb should be the 3mpl form, whereas the *ketiv* reflects either a 3fs form, or a remnant of the archaic 3fpl form of the perfect.9 Regardless, the translation of the phrase 'X א ֹֹ ל ינו ֵ דָי) 'where 'X' represents a form of the verb ך פ ָשׁ (into Arabic will not reflect which form the translator was translating. Thus, Saadya translates the above phrase

9 This 3fpl form would have dropped out at a later stage of the language due to its similarity to the 3fs of the perfect. Some controversy surrounds the construal of perfect verbs ending in ה-ָ with plural subjects (e.g., here, Num. 43.4; Josh. 15.4; 18.12, 14, 19; 2 Kgs 22.24; Jer. 2.15; 22.6; 50.6; Ps. 73.2; Job 16.16). Gordis (1971, 104–5), Kutscher (1982, 39–40), and Cohen (2007, 77–79) maintain the view that this is indeed a remnant of the archaic third person feminine plural form. Bergsträsser (1962, II.15) states that this situation is possible, but not certain, as these cases may simply be "errors or deviations (Fehler oder Abweichungen)" of congruence. Joüon (1947, 100–1), following Nöldeke (1904, 19, n. 3), maintains that these occurrences are simply the 3fs form and that the *ketiv* was a result of a misspelling due to Aramaic influence, which preserved the form ending in ה-ָ .

as תספך לם אידינא) NLRSP10 Yevr II C 1, fol. 206v, ln. 1), in which, according to Arabic grammatical norms, he uses the 3fs form. It is not clear whether this reflects the *qere* or the *ketiv*. Saadya's *Tafsīr* conforms, for the most part, to the norms of Classical Arabic grammar in order to convey to his audience the sense of the biblical text, rather than a wooden literal translation.11 Classical Arabic requires a feminine singular verb when the preceding subject is a broken plural.12 Yefet translates this verse: ספכו מא אידינא (BL Or 2480, fol. 31r, lns. 4–5). Yefet's biblical translations exhibit a word-for-word, even morpheme-for-morpheme, imitation of the Hebrew source text.13 It would appear, then, that Yefet's translation reflects the *qere*. In his commentary, however, the verse is transcribed for comment as follows: לא ידינו קולהם פאמא 2480, Or BL' (..."יָד ֵ ינו ל ֹֹ א שׁפכה" ,expression their for as ,Now 'ספכה fol. 31r, lns. 8–9), thereby reflecting the *ketiv*, without an idiomatic translation following.

Second, I excluded euphemistic *qere*/*ketiv* pairs, such as the שגל) K)/שכב) Q) 'to violate' pair (Deut. 28.30; Isa. 13.16; Jer 3.2;

10 Henceforth NLRSP= National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg; BL=The British Library, London; NLF=The National Library of France, Paris; IOM=Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, the Russian Academy of Sciences.

11 See Pollicak (1997, 82–90); Vollandt (2014, 69–74).

12 Wright (1898, 2:296).

13 Polliack states that 'The literalism of Yefet's translations effects [*sic*] their Arabic style which often appears slavish and ungrammatical' (1997, 40). See also Vollandt (2014, 74–77); Sasson (2016, 25–30).

Zech. 14.2), and the עפלים) K)/טחורים) Q) 'tumours/haemorrhoids' pair (Deut. 28.27; 1 Sam. 5.6, 9, 12), since, in these instances, the *qere* "suggests the exact same meaning without saying it directly" (Ofer 2019, 99).

With these limitations in place, I analysed 48 verses among Saadya's works and as many Karaite texts for those verses as was available to me.14 This yielded a total of 138 items of data. In what follows I offer a brief statistical overview of the extent to which Saadya and the Karaites follow the *qere* or the *ketiv* in their translations and commentaries. I then discuss these statistics in greater detail, offering relevant examples. I conclude with some final remarks and observations.

## **3.0. GENERAL RESULTS ACROSS THE WORKS OF SAADYA AND THE KARAITES**

The works of Saadya, out of a total of 48 items of data, yield the following statistics: 35 instances reflect the *qere* (72.92 percent); nine instances reflect the *ketiv* (18.75 percent); three instances reflect both the *qere* and the *ketiv* (6.25 percent); one instance reflects neither the *qere* nor the *ketiv* (2.08 percent). Collectively, the works of the Karaites, presenting a total of ninety items of data, yield the following statistics: 72 instances reflect the *qere*

14 Gen. 30.11; Isa. 9.2; 10.32; 25.10; 30.5; 32.7; 49.5; 52.5; 65.4; Ezek. 42.9, 16; Ps. 9.13, 19; 10.10, 12; 74.11; 100.3; 139.16; Prov. 3.34; 14.21 8.17; 15.14; 16.19; 17.27; 19.7, 19; 20.20, 21; 21.29; 23.26, 31; 26.2; 31.4; Job 6.2, 21; 9.30; 13.15; 21.13; 30.22; 33.19 Song 2.13; Ruth 3.5, 12; 3.17 Eccl. 9.4; 12.6; Dan 9.24; 11.18.

(80 percent); six instances reflect the *ketiv* (6.67 percent); twelve instances reflect both the *qere* and the *ketiv* (13.33 percent).

These data suggest that Saadya and the Karaite exegetes translated and interpreted Scripture according to the tradition of the *qere* in the majority of instances. They did not, however, feel totally bound to that tradition and occasionally deviated from it, suggesting that they considered both traditions authoritative. Examination of the examples where precedence is given to the *ketiv* indicates that in almost every case this was due to an attempt to harmonise a reading with a parallel passage in the surrounding context or elsewhere in Scripture. This suggests that the primary concern of both Saadya and the Karaite exegetes was a clear exposition of each verse consistent with its context. Most of the time the meaning of the *qere* tradition yielded this satisfactory sense. Occasionally, however, this objective could be achieved only if translation and exegesis were based on the *ketiv* or on both traditions.

Saadya never mentions the phenomenon of *qere*/*ketiv* by name. Among the Karaites, I was able to find twelve instances in which they mention the phenomenon explicitly; I will list these instances below in the sections on the relevant scholars.

#### **4.0. SAADYA GAON**

Saadya (882–942) was born in Fayyūm, Egypt, and was known in Arabic as Saʿīd ben Yūsuf al-Fayyūmī. After spending some years in Tiberias,15 in 928 he was appointed the head (Gaon) of the Babylonian *yeshiva*. One of his most important works is his translation of the Bible into Arabic, known as the *Tafsīr*. Saadya's *Tafsīr* is not uniform in its shape. For this reason, scholarly mention of the *Tafsīr* usually refers to one (or more) of three things: (1) an exegetical work on a part of the Pentateuch that consists of a translation of biblical verses embedded within a 'long commentary'—another name by which scholars refer to this body of work; (2) a translation of the Pentateuch without commentary, sometimes called the 'short *Tafsīr*'; (3) a translation and commentary on some of the remaining books of the Bible.16 Based on one of his introductions to the short *Tafsīr*, scholars accept the fact that he began the work after he left his home town in Egypt.17 They remain divided, however, as to when exactly he began his translation, and its subsequent development.18 The works in

16 See Brody (1998, 301).

17 Ben-Shammai (2000).

15 His time in Palestine in general, and Tiberias in particular, is known from two principal sources. The first is a letter he wrote to former students. The scenario is as follows: Saadya and R. David were both in Babylon. R. David received a letter from Saadya's students, who ask about a calendrical dispute of which Saadya is a part. Puzzled as to why his students did not write to him, Saadya wrote back to them: אני כסבור Brody (כי לא כתבתם אליו מב לעד י בלתי כי דימיתם כי עד עתה עודני בארץ ישראל 2013, 26; see Schechter 1901, 60 leaf 1v lns. 6–8 for the original letter fragment). The second comes from an account by the historian al-Masʿūdī (d. 956) (de Goeje 1894, 112–13; Polliack 1997, 11–12).

18 For opinions regarding the beginnings of the *Tafsīr*, see Vollandt (2015, 80, n. 119). For treatments regarding its development, see Brody

group (1) consist of fragments of the commentaries on Genesis (Zucker 1984), Exodus (Ratzaby 1998), and Leviticus (Leeven 1943; Zucker 1955–1956, 1957–1958).19 The main edition for the work of group (2) is that of Derenbourg (1893), although an updated critical edition is being prepared by Schlossberg (2011).20 The works of group (3) consist of Isaiah (Derenbourg and Derenbourg 1895; Ratzaby 1993), Psalms (Qafiḥ 1966), Proverbs (Derenbourg 1894; Qafiḥ 1976), Job (Qafiḥ 1973), the Five Scrolls (Qafiḥ 1962), and Daniel (Qafiḥ 1981; Alobadi 2006). Allony (1944) has also published fragments of Saadya's translation of Ezekiel.

The works of Saadya primarily reflect the *qere* (72.92 percent), but to a lesser extent than the Karaites collectively (80 percent). In nine instances (18.75 percent), Saadya's work reflects the *ketiv,* all which take place within the *ketuvim*; 21 in three of these instances (Ps. 139.16; Job 6.21; Prov. 19.7), the *qere*/*ketiv*  pair is לו' to him' (Q)/לא' no, not' (K).22 In one of these instances (Ruth 3.5), the *qere* reflects the presence of a prepositional phrase ]י ל א ]י ִֶר ְאמ ֹ תּ, whereas the *ketiv* reflects its absence. This instance

(1998, 303), Ben-Shammai (2000, 205–206), Steiner (2010, 76–93). More recently, see Zewi (2015, 27–29) for an overview of opinions about the *Tafsīr's* developments.

19 See also Qafiḥ (1984) and Ratzaby (2004) for additional fragments.

20 See Zewi (2015, 32–34) for a discussion of Derenbourg's edition.

21 Ps. 10.10, 12; 139.16; Prov. 14.21; 15.14; 19.7; Job 6.21; Song 2.13; Ruth 3.5.

22 This specific *qere/ketiv* pair is discussed in detail below, since it receives exceptional treatment by both Saadya and the Karaite exegetes.

may be explained in light of the tendency of Saadya's translation technique, whereby he omits words that he deems superfluous.23 In the remaining four instances (Ps. 10.10, 12; Prov. 14.21; 15.14; Song 2.13), it seems that Saadya's preference for the *ketiv* is due to an attempt to harmonise the verse with either the immediate context or other verses.24 For example:

ודכה ]יִדְ כּ ֶ ה[ יָ שֹׁ֑ ח וְ נָ פ ֶ ל בּ עֲ צומֵָ יו חלכאים ]ח יל כָּ אִ ים[׃ (3) 'He crushes, he crouches down; the host of the fearful fall by his strength' (Ps. 10.10)

This verse contains two *qere/ketiv* pairs. I will focus here on the second. This is included in the Masoretic treatise *ʾOkhla we-ʾOkhla* as one of fifteen instances where the *ketiv* is written as one word, but read as two.25 The *ketiv* seems to reflect the lexeme ה ָכ ְל ח' disheartened, unhappy' (cf. Ps. 10.8, 14) with an orthographic variant of final *ʾalef* rather than *heh*. The *qere* reflects a reading consisting of the word יל ח' strength' and a *hapax legomenon* adjectival form from the root ה"כא' to be disheartened' (cf. Dan. 11.30). Saadya's translation (according to Qafiḥ 1966, 68) is as follows:

23 Blau (2014, 447), where he discusses this tendency in Saadya's translation of the Pentateuch. See also Vollandt (2015, 80–83).

24 For the importance of context in Saadya's exegesis see Ben-Shammai (1991, 382–83).

25 Díaz-Esteban (1975, 134–135 [list 82]).

It is clear that Saadya's translation reflects a single word (אלבאיסין(, and therefore is a rendering of the *ketiv* (חלכאים(. All of the Karaites' translations here, with the exception of Salmon ben Yeruḥam, reflect the *qere*. 26 The reason Saadya may have preferred to translate the *ketiv* here is most likely due to the surrounding context. As he says in his commentary, the actions of the of that describe) יָ שֹׁ֑ ח =) ויתכ̇ אפץ̇ and) יִדְ כּ ֶ ה=) יתכ̇ אצ̇ ע verbs the lion mentioned one verse earlier (9) as a metaphor for the wicked person. Thus the metaphor extends into this verse (10). Earlier, in verse 8, the wicked person is described as targeting the 'helpless' (ה ֶ ָכ ְל ח(. This same word is used in verse 14 to describe the victim once again (ה ֶ ָכ ְל ח(. The only difference in these two instances (vv. 9, 14) is the orthography, where the word ends in *heh* instead of *ʾalef*. Considering this context, it appears that

26 Yefet: אלמנכסרין גיש' the army of the broken ones' (NLF Ms Hebr 290, fol. 67v, ln. 4); Al-Fāsī: אמדין ̇אלכ יסאר' the comfort of those perishing' (Skoss 1936, II.82, ln. 15); Ibn-Nūḥ: כלמתין והי אליוד פיהא אכתצר' The *yod* has been elided and the form is two words' (Khan 2000, 223, ln. 16).

Saadya chose to translate the *ketiv* in order to maintain consistency within the chapter.

ה תְּ א נָ ה חָ נְ טָ ה פ גּ ִ יהָ וְ ה גְּ פָ נִֶים ׀ סְ מָ ד ר נָ תְ נו ר ֑ יח קֶ ומִ י לכי ]לָ ָך[ ר עְ יָתִֶ י יָפָ תִ י (4) ולְ כִ י־לָ ך׃

'The fig tree ripens its fruit, and as for the vines, their buds give forth fragrance. Arise, my friend and my beautiful one, go!' (Song 2.13)

The *qere* reflects the so-called dative of interest, whereas the *ketiv* seems to reflect the feminine imperative form of the verb of the verb ך ל ָה, viz. י ִכ ְל' go!'.27 Saadya's translation (Qafiḥ 1962, 53) is as follows:

ْم ِضي) אמצ̇ י uses Saadya ِ ا(, the feminine imperative of the Arabic َ َضى verb م' to go away', thus reflecting one possible form of the *ketiv*. The reason seems to be that, in the Hebrew Bible, whenever

27 For the dative of interest or 'ethical dative', see Joüon and Muraoka (2006, 458–59). The *ketiv* may also be analysed as reflecting the old Semitic 2fs -*ī* ending (see Joüon and Muraoka 2006, 267). Thanks to Aaron Hornkohl for bringing this to my attention.

the imperative form of the verb קום' arise' is followed by the consonants )י)לך, the latter is vocalised as the preposition plus a pronominal suffix only once, viz. in Song 2.10 ךָ ָל י ִומ ֶק. By contrast, the consonants )י)לך are realised as an imperative form of the verb ך ל ָה eleven times following an imperative form of the verb קום. 28 Thus, here, Saadya may have preferred a *ketiv* form since it reflects a more regular construction.

A similar preference for following the more regular construction is seen in his translation of Song 2.10's ךָ ָל י ִומ ֶק. Here there is no difference between *qere* and *ketiv*, but Saadya omits the dative of interest in his translation (according to Qafiḥ 1962, 51):

עָ נָ ֶה דודִ י וְ אָ מ ר לִ ֑י קֶ ומִ י לָ ָך ר עְ יָתִֶ י יָפָ תִ י ולְ כִ י־לָ ך׃ (5)

Saadya's translation renders the second dative of interest intact לך ואנטלקי=) ך ָי־ל ִכ ְול(, but not the first one. This is a further example, therefore, of how Saadya translated according to the normal construction with two imperative verbs, even if in this case there is no *ketiv* reading that reflects the imperative.

On three occasions, Saadya's works reflect both the *qere* and the *ketiv*:

28 Gen. 28.2; Num. 22.20; Deut. 10.11; 1 Sam. 9.3; 2 Sam. 13.15; 1 Kgs 14.12; 17.9; Jer. 13.4, 6; Jon. 1.2; 3.2.

כּ צִּ פּ ור לָָ נוד כּ דְּ ר ור לָ ע֑ וף כּ ֶ ן קִ לְ ל ֶת חִ נֵָּ ם לא ]ל ו[ תָ ב ֹ א׃ (6) 'As a bird wandering to and fro, and as a swallow in flight, thus is an empty curse, it will return to him' (Prov. 26.2)

In this example, the *qere* reflects a translation as I have given above. The *ketiv* reflects the reading 'it will not come'. Saadya's translation and commentary (Qafiḥ 1976, 182) are as follows:

Saadya's translation reflects the *ketiv* (ln. 2). His commentary, however, depicts the resulting images of both the *qere* (lns. 19– 20) and the *ketiv* (lns. 16–18). The reason for this does not seem to be the tendency to harmonise with the context or other places in Scripture. Rather, it is due to the exceptional treatment of this particular *qere/ketiv* pair, which I will treat below.29

In one instance, Saadya's translation reflects neither the *qere* nor the *ketiv*:

29 The other instances in which Saadya's translation reflects both are Ps. 100.3—for the *qere* see Qafiḥ (1966, 221, lns. 8–9); for the *ketiv* see Qafiḥ (1969–1970, 41, lns. 22–24) and Rosenblatt (1948, 47); and Job 9.30—for the *qere* see Qafiḥ (1973, 59, lns. 2–14); for the *ketiv* see Qafiḥ (1979–1980, 229, lns. 22–26) and Rosenblatt (1948, 372).

כֹּ ל הבאיש ]הֹבִִ ישׁ[ ע ל־ע ם ל ֹא־יועִ ילו לָ ֑מו ל ֹֹ א לְ ע ז ר וְ ל ֹ א לְ הועִִ יל כִֶּ י לְ בֹ שׁ ת (7) וְ ג ם־לְ ח רְ פָּ ה׃

'All are put to shame because of a people who does not profit them. They are not for help nor profit, but for shame and reproach' (Isa. 30.5)

The *qere* reflects ישׁ ִהוב' to be ashamed'; the *ketiv* seems to reflect ישׁ ִא ְב ִה' to stink, cause to stink'. Saadya's translation (according to Ratzaby 1993, 61) is as follows:

The reason for Saadya's paraphrase is unclear. It seems he translates the portion in question in order to indicate *why* the people (in this case, Israel) would be ashamed (Q)/stink (K), viz. because they rebelled (=עצוני(.

## **5.0. THE KARAITES**

The period of medieval Karaism before the twelfth century CE may be divided into two periods. The first period runs roughly from the middle of the eighth century until the first half of the tenth century. The primary names associated with this period are scholars from Iran and Iraq, such as ʿAnan ben David, Daniel al-Qūmūsī, and Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisāni. The second period is from about 950 until the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders in 1099, and is associated with scholars active in Palestine, in particular in the Karaite school (*dār al-ʿilm* 'house of knowledge') in Jerusalem, such as Salmon ben Yeruḥam, Yefet ben ʿEli, David ben Abraham al-Fāsī, David ben Boaz, ʾAbū Yaʿaqūb Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ, ʾAbū al-Faraj Hārūn, and Jeshua ben Judah.30

Above (§3.0), I presented the statistical results for the Karaite exegetes collectively. Although useful for comparison to Saadya, this would not be a true representation of the Karaites' tendencies with regard to *qere* and *ketiv.* The data suggest that, even though the Karaites' works reflect the *qere* the majority of the time, instances of deviance were not uniform, but differed according to the exegesis of each individual scholar. Thus, in what follows, I will present the data for each Karaite scholar in their rough chronological order.

#### **5.1. Salmon ben Yeraḥam**

Salmon, probably born between 910 and 920, was active in Palestine through the middle of the tenth century and is best known for his polemical work against Saadya Gaon, *Sefer Milḥamot ha-Shem* 'Book of the Wars of the Lord'. His commentaries on Psalms,

30 See Frank (2004, 1–22); Lasker (2007).

Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and a few folios of his commentary on the Pentateuch have been identified.31

In total, I was able to find eighteen items of data for Salmon.32 The works of Salmon reflect the *qere* twelve times, or 66.67 percent of the time. This is statistically the lowest incidence among the Karaites for which a significant number (five or more) of instances were found. His works reflect the *ketiv* twice (11.11 percent), and both the *qere* and the *ketiv* four times (22.22 percent). Statistically, his reflection of both is the highest among the Karaites. Both instances in which Salmon reflects the *ketiv* involve the *qere/ketiv* pair עניים' poor'/ענוים' humble'. 33 These two terms are usually treated as synonyms due to the fact that in some instances עניים is the *qere* while ענוים is the *ketiv* (e.g., Isa. 32.7; Ps. 9.19), and in others the reverse is the case (e.g., Ps. 9.13; 10.12). In all instances except one (shown below), regardless of which is the *qere* and which is the *ketiv*, Salmon translates ענוים 'humble'. 34 The one instance in which he interprets according to

31 See Frank (2004 12–20); Zawanoska (2012, 20–21).

32 Ps. 9.13, 19; 10.10, 12; 74.11; 100.3; Prov. 3.34; 8.17; 14.21; 16.19; 17.27; 19.7, 19; 20.21; 26.2; 31.4; Eccl. 9.4; 12.6.

33 Ps. 9.19; Prov. 14.21.

34 Ps. 9.13: עין ̇אלמתואצ) *qere;* NLRSP Ms. EVR ARAB I 1345, fol. 60v, ln. 13); Ps. 9.19: עין ̇אלמתואצ) *ketiv;* NLRSP Ms. EVR ARAB I 1345, fol. 61v, ln. 15); Ps. 10.12: עין ̇אלמתואצ) *qere;* NLRSP Ms. EVR ARAB I 1345, fol. 65r, ln. 3); Prov. 3.34: עין ̇אלמתואצ) *qere;* NLRSP Ms. EVR ARAB I 1463, fol. 4r, ln. 24); Prov. 16.19: אלכאשעין) *qere;* NLRSP Ms. EVR ARAB I 1463, fol. 17r, ln. 2).

the reading עניים' poor' is Prov. 14.21, due to the immediate context (NLRSP Ms. EVR ARAB I 1463 fol. 15v).

בָּ ז־לְ ר ע ֶהו חוט ֑ א ומְ חונ ֵן עניים ]עֲ נָ וִ ים[ אַשְׁ רָ יו׃ (8) 'The one who despises his neighbour is a sinner, but whoever has compassion on the poor is blessed' (Prov. 14.21)

Salmon interprets this verse in light of the one preceding (ln. 11). The preceding verse, Prov. 14.20, deals with the poor and the rich. This verse (Prov. 14.21) contrasts the previous one in terms

of normal versus abnormal behaviour. People normally despise the poor (Prov. 14.20); earlier in the commentary, Salmon says that people normally despise the poor not out of hostility, but due to the fact that the poor can exploit others for the sake of their own needs. Despising your neighbour for no reason, however, is abnormal (Prov. 14.21). Salmon says the one who has compassion (ןֵ חונ ְומ (does the opposite of 'that' (דאך ;ln. 13). 'That' could refer to despising either a neighbour (Prov. 14.21) or the poor (Prov. 14:20), or even both. Due to Salmon's treatment of both verses together, it is most likely he is reading the word 'poor' (עניים(, in which case he is interpreting the *ketiv*.

Statistically more than any of the other Karaites—in four instances—Salmon's works reflect both the *qere* and the *ketiv*. In two of these instances the pair is לו) Q)/אֹ ל) K), and in both he explicitly mentions *qere*/*ketiv*. 35 In the remaining two instances (Eccl. 9.4; 12.6), the *qere* and *ketiv* appear to be from separate roots.36

with written is וְ לא' ולא מכתוב באלף ויקרא בוו 100.3 .Ps 22. .n ,above See 35 *ʾalef* and read with *waw*' (NLRSP Ms. EVR I 558 fol. 36r, lns. 2–3); Prov. 26.2 אלוגהין עלי ויתפסר כאתבה והו' That (form is the) written, and it may be interpreted in both ways' (NLRSP Ms. EVR ARAB I 1463 fol. 27r, ln. 33).

36 In Gordis's lists (1971, 152, list 82), these two verses are 'unclassified' and appear in the list 'Q Preferable to K'.

```
כִּ י־מִ י אֲ שׁ ר יבחר ]יְח בּ ִ ר[ א ֶ ל כָּ ל־ה ח יִּ ים י שׁ בִּ טָּ ח֑ ון כִּ י־לְ כ ֹל ב ח י ה וא טִ וב מִ ן־ (9)
                                                                                הָ אַרְ י ה ה מּ ת׃
```
'For, whoever is joined to all of life has hope, because a living dog is better than a dead lion' (Eccl. 9.4)

The *qere* is a *pual* form from the root ר"חב' to join', while the *ketiv* appears to be from the root ר"בח' to choose'. Salmon's treatment of this verse (NLRSP Ms. EVR I 559 fols. 144r–145v) is as follows:

In this example, the *ketiv* is used as a source for the interpretation of the 'inner' (באטן, fol. 145v, ln. 5), i.e., hidden, non-literal, meaning.37 This contrasts with the meaning of the *qere* 'is combined' (יולף, fol. 144r, ln. 1), which is glossed as 'is added' (אף ̇יצ, fol. 144r, ln. 1).38 The interpretation is that the advantage the living have over the dead is that they are able to serve God (fol. 144r, lns. 11–14). Salmon states that the word ר ִ בּ חְי is 'written' ُ ْكَت ُب passive ,יכתב) ي (as יבחר, thereby explicitly referring to the distinction between *qere* and *ketiv*. The 'inner' meaning is then that people must choose (=יבחר (life in order to do good works.

ע ד אֲ שׁ ֹ ר ל ֹ א־ירחק ]י רָ ת ק [ ח ב ל ה כּ ִ ס ף וְ תָ ר ץ גּ לּ ת ה זָּ הָ ֑ ב וְ תִ שָּׁ ֹ ב ר כּ ד ע ל־ (10) ה מּ בִּ וע וְ נָ רֶֹ ץ ה גּ לְ גּ ל א ל־ה בּ ור׃

'(Remember your Creator while you are young) before the silver cord is no longer bound, and the golden basin is crushed, and the pitcher is shattered on the fountain, or the wheel is crushed on the cistern' (Eccl. 12.6)

The *qere* is from the rare root ק"רת' to bind'. The *ketiv* appears to be from the root ק"רח' to be distant'. The explanation for the two readings seems to be orthographical confusion of the second radical.39 Salmon's treatment (NLRSP Ms. EVR I 559 fols. 178r– 178v) is as follows:

37 For a discussion of the literal (*al-zāhir*) and the inner (*al-bāṭin*) meanings of Scripture, see Ben-Shammai (2003, 43). For a discussion of these concepts in the wider Islamic world, see Velji (2016, 14–21).

38 For alternative readings among the Karaites, see Polliack (1993).

39 Barthélemy (2015, 877) explains the reason for this confusion as due to misreading of the phrase א ֹ ל ר ֹ שׁ ֲא ד ע. He contends that א ֹ ל has a nonnegative meaning since the entire phrase is a Hebraicization of the Aramaic א ָל ְדּ ד ע' but'.

Both the *qere* (=יתסלסל (and the *ketiv* (=ויתבאעד (are translated (fol. 178r, ln. 9). In order to accommodate both meanings, the 'silver cord' is interpreted as a metaphor for the spinal cord (fol. 178v, ln. 2). Signs of ageing include that the vertebrae of the spinal cord are 'no longer linked' ( ק ת ָר י, *qere*; fol. 178v, ln. 2) and 'are distancing themselves from each other' (ירחק, *ketiv*; fol. 178v, ln. 4) due to the weakening of the joints. Salmon does not introduce the *ketiv* by stating in any way that it is 'written'. Rather, he refers to it by קאל' it/he said'.

#### **5.2. Yefet ben ʿElī**

Yefet, known in Arabic as ʾAbū ʿAlī Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Lāwī al-Baṣrī, most likely immigrated from Baṣra, ʿIrāq, to Jerusalem, where he was active during the second half of the tenth century.40 Few other details of his life are known. Yefet produced a translation and commentary of the whole Bible. This is extant in hundreds of manuscripts, which were copied between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries.41 Consequently, Yefet's treatment of every verse used in this study was available to me.

Out of 48 instances, 38 (79.17 percent) reflect the *qere*; statistically, this is the highest among the Karaites. Two instances (4.17 percent) reflect the *ketiv*; statistically, this is the lowest among the Karaites. Eight instances (16.67 percent) reflect both.

Both instances of Yefet's reflection of the *ketiv* stem from harmonisation with either the immediate context or other places in Scripture.

Consider Job 6.21:

כִּ י־ע ָ תָּ ה הֱ יִ ית ם לא ]ל֑ ו[ תִּ רְ אֶ ו חֲ ת ֵ ת ו תִּ ירָ או׃ (11) It is not entirely clear how to translate this verse according to the *qere*: the preposition ְל plus the 3ms suffix. The *ketiv* is אֹ ל' no, not'. This example (as per Hussain's [1987, 93] edition) is particularly illustrative of Yefet's tendency to deviate from the *qere* according to the context:

40 Mann (1935, 20–23); Sasson (2016, 5). Also see Ben-Shammai, (2007).

41 Sasson (2016, 5).

Yefet's translation clearly reflects the *ketiv* (שי לא' nothing'; ln. 2). This interpretation is appropriate in the context. 'Nothing' refers to the fact that, among Job's friends, there is no one left to pity him (lns. 3–4). The reason they leave him is because they see

42 Reading taken from NLRSP Ms. EVR ARAB I 247 fol. 75r ln. 11. Hussain's edition has פתכוני.

(=ו ֶא ְר ִתּ (his calamity and do not want the same to befall them (lns. 4–5).43

Of the eight instances in which Yefet's translation and/or commentary reflect both the *qere* and the *ketiv*, four instances involve the pair לו) Q)/אֹ ל) K). Other cases include the following:

```
ומתחתה לשכות ]ומִ תּ ח ת ה לְּ שָׁ כ ות[ הָ א ֑ לּ ה המבוא ]ה מּ בִ יא [ מ ה קָּ דִִ ים (12)
                                                                   בְּ בֹא ו לָ ה ִ נָּ ה מ ה חָ צ ר ה חִ צֹנָ ה׃
```
'Below these chambers, (there shall be) a passage from the east for one's entering them from the outer courts' (Ezek. 42.9)

This example contains three pairs of *qere*/*ketiv*; the third instance is the one in question. The *qere* has the *hifil* participle יא ִב מ' to bring', perhaps nominalised to mean 'passage'. The *ketiv* has the noun 'entrance' plus the definite article. Yefet's treatment (BL Or. 5062, fols. 176r–176v) is as follows:

43 The other instance of Yefet's translation reflecting the *ketiv* is Prov. —(2–1 .lns 381 12, .ln 380 2016, Sasson) (K (בְּ אִ ישׁון/(Q (בּ אֱ שֶׁ ון 20.20 most likely a harmonisation with Prov. 7.9, where the *ketiv* form of 20.20 is the only reading (Sasson 2016, 233, lns. 10–11).

Yefet's translation reflects both the *qere* (=גיב[מ], fol. 176r, ln. 16) and the *ketiv* (=אלמדכל ;fol. 176r, ln. 15). He links the two with the preposition אלי, which here means 'for'.44 There is nothing in the immediate context that provides a definitive answer as to why both words are represented in the translation. Yefet identifies the participle of the *qere* with the Levitical priests. The context, however, is mostly concerned with the architecture of the temple in Ezekiel's vision. It is possible that the retention of the *ketiv*, which represents an architectural feature, allows for continuity in spite of the shift to refer to the activities of the priests.45

44 See Blau (2006, 19).

45 The other three instances which are not לו) Q)/אֹ ל) K) are Gen. 30.11 (NLF Ms. Hebr 278, fol. 87r lns. 10–11, fol. 87v, lns. 6–7), Ps. 10.12

Within the four instances of the לו) Q)/אֹ ל) K) pair, Yefet explicitly mentions the phenomenon of *qere/ketiv*. One of the four instances in Yefet's works (Prov. 26.2) has already been identified by Sasson (2013, 18), in which she also draws attention to the way in which Yefet designates *qere/ketiv*: "Yefet's description of *kǝtiv* as 'that which is written inside' and *qǝre* as 'that which is written outside' testifies to the page arrangement of the codices that were at his disposal."46 The two terms are *maktūb dāḫil/yuktabu min dāḫil* 'written inside', and *maktūb barran/yuktabu min barra* 'written outside'. Yefet refers to *qere/ketiv* in this manner in Prov. 19.7 (Sassoon 2016, 360, lns. 1–13), and Job 13.15 (BL Or 2510 fol. 69r, lns. 6–8). But consider Ps. 139.16:

גּ ָלְ מ ִ י ׀ָר ָ אִָוּ עֵ ינ ֶ יךָוְ ע ַ ל־ס פְ רְ ךָ ָכֻּ לּ ָם י ָכּ ָתֵ ֵ בוּ י מ ֵ יםָיָֻצּ ָרוּ ולאָ]וְ ל֖ ו[ָא ח ָ דָבּ ָה ַ ם׃ (13) 'Your eyes have seen me when I was incomplete, the days formed for me are all written in your book; in it is one of them' (Ps. 139.16)

In Yefet's treatment (according to NLF Ms Hebr 291, fols. 147v– 148v) he mentions only that which is 'written' and does not specify 'outside' or 'inside':

(NLF Ms. Hebr 290, fol. 68v, lns. 6–13), and Isa. 52.5 (NLRSP Ms. EVR I 596 fol. 221r lns. 8–10, fol. 222v lns. 8–12).

46 See further Sasson (2013, 18–20). For this verse see Sasson (2016, 447, lns. 9–15).

#### **5.3. Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ**

Abū Yaʿaqūb Yūsuf ben Nūḥ, a native of Iraq, lived and worked in Palestine in the second half of the tenth century and beginning

47 Reading taken from IOM Ms. A 215 fol. 75r ln. 8; IOM Ms. A 66 fol. 173v ln. 3. The reading in NLF Ms. Hebr. 291 contains the form אלכתבא.

of the eleventh century. He founded a college in Jerusalem called *dār li-l-ʿilm* 'house of learning' at the beginning of the eleventh century, a compound for biblical study and worship.48 Ibn Nūḥ was well known as a grammarian and commentator (see §5.0 above).

I found a total of six instances from the published portions of ibn Nūḥ's grammatical commentary known as the *Diqduq* (ed. Khan 2000). In all instances, his work reflects the *qere*, even where another scholar's work may have reflected the *ketiv*. For example, in Ps. 10.10 Saadya's translation and commentary indicate the *ketiv*. 49 Ibn Nūḥ's treatment of this verse (as found in Khan 2000, 222–23) is as follows:

Ibn Nūḥ refers to the *qere* of the form in Ps. 10.10, which consists of two words.

48 See Margoliouth (1897, 438–439); Khan (2000, 5–7).

49 See example 3.

### **5.4. David ben Abraham al-Fāsi**

Al-Fāsi was a native of Morroco and lived in Palestine some time during the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. During this time he composed his dictionary the *Kitāb Jāmīʿ al-Alfāz,* which also contains grammatical and exegetical discussions.50

I was able to gather a total of thirteen items of data from al-Fāsi. In twelve instances (92.3 percent), his works reflect the *qere*. In only one instance (7.7 percent), his work reflects the *ketiv*:

מְ ק לּ ל אָבִ יו וְ אִ מּ֑ ו יִ ֵדְ ע ֶ ך נ רֵ ו באישון ]בּ אֱ שֶׁ ון[ חֹ שׁ ך׃ (14) 'He who curses his father and his mother—his lamp will be snuffed out in darkness' (Prov. 20.20)

The *qere* is a *hapax legomenon,* whereas the *ketiv* appears to be the word for 'pupil', used rarely in the Bible (cf. Deut. 32.10; Prov. 7.2, 9; Prov. 17.8). Al-Fāsi (according to Skoss 1936, I:79, lns. 174–75; I:159, lns. 88–89) treats the word as follows:

50 See Zawanowska (2012, 24); Skoss (1936, xxxi–lxv).

ידעך נרו באשון חשך פי גִ פון 88 אלט̇ למה. וקד יִ ֵדְ ע ֶ ך נ רֵ ו (*qere* the in says It( (means also this (,בּ אֱ שֶׁ ון חֹ שׁ ך 'in the eyelids of darkness'. I have already אוצ̇ חת כל מא יקתצ̇ י לפט̇ ה אשון פי באב א̇ י̇ 89 explained all that is required regarding the word ון ֶשׁ ֱא בּ in the section ʾ*alefyod*.

Al-Fāsi's reference to the 'eyelids of darkness' (למה ̇אלט פון ִג (appears to mean the darkness when one's eyelids cover their eyes. This mention of a part of the eye appears to refer to the lexeme ישׁון ִא=) *ketiv*). In the section of the dictionary where the lexeme ון ֶשׁ ֱא בּ would have appeared, al-Fāsi, refers the reader back to the entry for ישׁון ִא, indicating that he regarded the two words as synonymous. In his interpretation of Prov. 20.20, therefore, al-Fāsī uses the more familiar form of the *ketiv* as the basis of the interpretation of the hapax legomenon of the *qere*.

### **5.5. ʿAlī ibn Sulaymān**

ʿAlī ibn Sulaymān lived during the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth centuries and probably lived in Jerusalem for some time.51 He is best known for his dictionary, which was based on an abridgement of al-Fāsi's.52

I was able to find only one example for ʿAli which reflects the *qere*:

51 Skoss (1928, 30–31).

52 Skoss (1928, 31).

ו תּ ֶֹ אמ ר ל אָ ה בגד ]בָּ א גָ ֑ד[ ו תִּ קְ רָ ֶ א א ת־שְׁ מ ו גָּ ד׃ (15) 'Leah said, "Fortune has come!" So, she called his name Gad' (Gen. 30.11)

The *qere* reflects two words—a verb plus a noun. The *ketiv* either reflects the same thing, but with graphic elision of quiescent *ʾalef*, 53 or, a preposition plus a noun. In his dictionary (edition of Pinsker 1860, 181; translation by Skoss 1928, 60), ʿAli states that:

ʿAlī here follows al-Fāsi in recognising that this is two words, and therefore reads according to the *qere*. 54 He is unlike Yefet, whose translation reflects the *qere*, but whose commentary reflects both the *qere* and the *ketiv*. 55

## **6.0. THE** *QERE/KETIV* **PAIR** אֹ ל/לו

The *qere/ketiv* pair לו) Q)/אֹ ל) K) often results in deviation from the *qere* in the works of Saadya and the Karaites. Out of nineteen total relevant instances cited in their works, there are deviations

53 Díaz Esteban (1975, 135).

54 For al-Fāsi, see Skoss (1936, I:298, lns. 14–16).

55 See n. 45.

from the *qere* eleven times (57.9 percent). In some cases—Exod. 21.8; Lev. 11.21; 25.30—the surrounding context made the *ketiv*  highly implausible, so I left these out of my investigation. Indeed, Lieberman (1988, 82) argues that, in these three cases, the *qere/ketiv* distinction is actually a false one, and that they constitute "an outgrowth of midrashic inference." Thus, I limited myself to instances where an obvious exegetical difference was observable.56

The reason for the frequent divergence seems to be related to the long and complicated history of the transmission of the verses containing these alternatives. In his study of this *qere/ketiv* pair Ognibeni (1989, 131–33) concluded, from the textual witnesses of the versions, that the reading tradition of the *qere* (לו ( is indeed ancient. The Dead Sea scrolls shed new light on the development of the *ketiv*. According to Lieberman (1988, 84), in about 80 percent of the instances of the verses that are attested in Masoretic lists, the *plene* spelling לוא is attested. Within K. A. Matthew's orthographical typology, the spelling לוא belongs to the Hasmonian type (Freedman and Matthews 1985, 56–57). Ognibeni (1989, 136) concludes that "scribes copying from manuscripts of [the Hasmonean] type but writing according to other orthographic conventions may have occasionally fallen into error in the interpretation of this homograph." Lieberman (1988, 83– 84) has shown that this *qere/ketiv* pair evolved from multiple sources and that all instances have manuscript variants which support either reading. Based on his study of some Genizah fragments of Job 6.21, he states that 'it becomes quite evident that

56 I analysed Isa. 49.5; Job 6.21; Ps. 100.3; 139.16; Prov. 19.7; 26.2.

until very late... we have a text in a state of flux' (Lieberman 1988, 84). It is therefore plausible to suppose that, even though some of the Karaites' comments indicate the typical codicological arrangement of *qere/ketiv*, the situation described above with this particular pair still rendered both readings authoritative.

#### **7.0. CONCLUSION**

In this paper I have tried to determine to what extent the phenomenon of *qere*/*ketiv* is reflected in the works of Saadya Gaon and the medieval Karaite exegetes. In order to accomplish this, I analysed 48 instances in which the exegetical effect of the *qere/ketiv* pair was very apparent. The works of both Saadya and the Karaites generally reflect the *qere*. Nevertheless, not all of the scholars shared the same conviction as the Karaite al-Qirqisānī, that the *qere* was to be preferred as exclusively authoritative. Almost every divergence from this tendency may be shown to be due to the desire to harmonise a particular reading with the immediate context or parallel verses. This suggests that consistency of exposition is what propelled exegetical decisions between the *qere* and the *ketiv*. The pair לו) Q)/אֹ ל) K) appears to have constituted a special case, since there is evidence that both readings retained authority among the exegetes and so they felt particularly free to base their interpretation on the *ketiv* when the context allowed for it.

#### **8.0. REFERENCES**

Allony, Neḥemya. 1944. 'Saadia's Translation of Ezekiel'. *Tarbiz* 16 (11): 21–27.

*Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam*, edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W. Goering, 33–50. Oxford: University Press.

Text of the Qurʾān'. *The Jewish Quarterly Review* 81 (1–2): 59–73.

*ʾAbū al-Faraj Hārūn Ibn al-Faraj*. 2 vols. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 37. Leiden: Brill.

## **PAUSAL FORMS AND PROSODIC STRUCTURE IN TIBERIAN HEBREW\***

*Vincent DeCaen & B. Elan Dresher*

————————————————————————————

*Unless this question of the use of conjunctives with pausal forms can be resolved in agreement with Dresher's basic premises, there seems no reason to doubt that accents and vowels reflect distinct (though related) reading traditions.*

Revell (2015, 15)

#### **1.0. INTRODUCTION**

Tiberian Hebrew (TH), the canonical dialect employed in the reading of the received biblical text, is characterized by the occurrence of PAUSAL FORMS, words that are marked by variations in vowel quality and/or word stress. These pausal forms occur at the ends of constructions that are typically associated cross-linguistically with prosodic units called INTONATIONAL PHRASES (Dresher 1994; DeCaen 2005).

To the biblical *textus receptus* the Tiberian scholars also added musical phrasing by means of complex systems of conjunctive and ranked disjunctive ACCENTS, which, among other

\* An earlier version of this paper was presented jointly at SBL 2018 in Denver. We thank the participants in the section 'Masoretic Studies: Vocalization and Accentuation' for their comments and questions.

things, reflect the prosodic structure of each verse, indicating prosodic words (including clitic groups) and nested phonological phrases. We would therefore expect pausal forms to align with the phrasing indicated by the accents; in particular, we might expect pausal forms to occur systematically on particular disjunctive accents that mark the ends of intonational phrases.

As Revell has convincingly shown in many important publications on this topic (among others, Revell 1980; 1981; 2015), this is not what we find. In the words of Revell (2015, 11): "lack of consistency between the vowels and the accents is endemic, at a low level, throughout the text." Not only do we occasionally find pausal forms even on the most minor disjunctive accents, in roughly ten glaring cases we unexpectedly find the "bizarre combination" of pausal forms apparently *in the middle* of a phonological phrase (Revell 2015, 6). How are we to explain these contradictions, which point to a mismatch between the distribution of pausal forms and the phrasing indicated by the accentuation?

First, we agree with the thesis stated by Revell (1980, 170):

It is clear, then, that the pausal forms were already fixed in the reading tradition when its received form was established by the masoretes. Consequently, their position in the text, and so the system of text division which they represent, must date from some earlier period.

This must be the case, because the occurrence of pausal forms cannot be predicted from the accents. As Revell (2015, 1) puts it, "The Masoretic Text, then, evidently includes features, sometimes mutually contradictory, deriving from different stages of the reading tradition."

This much appears to be irrefutable. Revell's explanation for *how* this state of affairs came to be, however, is not as convincing to us. According to Revell (2015, 6), the apparent contradictions between prosodic phrasing and accentual phrasing in certain examples, and more generally, the unsystematic appearance of pausal forms with all sorts of accents, must reflect different "understandings" of the text, even though the "difference in meaning between the two interpretations is slight." Since there are instances where the accents seem to run roughshod over the pausal forms, it must be the case that the pausal forms were no longer recognized or appreciated for what they (originally) were: at the time that the accents were finalized, the pausal forms "must have been regarded simply as indeterminate variants of contextual forms" (Revell 2015, 6); they were "superseded and their function forgotten" (Revell 2015, 9).1

Dresher (1994, 14) expresses a somewhat different view:

Put in traditional terms, pausal forms follow neither the syntax nor the accents; but it is not necessary to suppose on this account that they derive from a distinct reading tradition. The reason for the inconsistent matching of

1 Implicit is the assumption of the superiority [or primacy?] of the vowel and stress patterns versus the accentuation. It is puzzling that the modern scholarly tradition discounts the accentuation as inferior, even though seminal Jewish commentators follow the accentuation (see Strauss Sherebrin 2013). After all, the practice of chanting poetry must be at least as old as Iron Age prophecy and Temple liturgy.

pausal forms with accents is that the Tiberian representation has no means of consistently marking this level [i.e., the intonational phrase] of the prosodic hierarchy.

In the comment quoted at the top of this article, Revell (2015, 15) takes issue with the denial of a "distinct reading tradition." Of course, there are different ways of understanding 'distinct'. In this article, we elaborate on Dresher's (1994) account and advance a theory of how pausal forms came to co-exist with a musico-prosodic structure that does not entirely suit them. We agree with Revell (2015) that pausal forms do not depend on the accents and must have originated at a stage of the reading tradition prior to the fixing of the accents. In this sense, pausal forms and the accents can be said to arise from 'distinct' stages.

We do not think, however, that it follows that the pausal forms derive from a tradition that is *different* from the one that produced the accents, in the sense that there were two schools with different understandings of the text. This is because, as we will show, mismatches between pausal forms and accentual phrasing are *inevitable*, and, *crucially*, are due to the way the TH system of accents is designed. In other words, the mismatches are not necessarily due to different reading traditions with different understandings of the text or to ignorance concerning the nature of pausal forms, but rather to a basic flaw in the TH concept of prosodic structure. That is, while we cannot exclude the scenario put forward by Revell, we will argue that the vast majority of the mismatches between pausal forms and accents would have arisen *even if* the accentuators had been fully aware of the function of pausal forms, because the TH system of accents gave them no alternative way to handle them.

In §2 we present a brief introduction to the theory of the prosodic hierarchy and show how it compares with the Tiberian accentual representation. In §3 we argue that pausal forms occur at the ends of intonational phrases, and in §4 we show why pausal forms *cannot* systematically align with the Tiberian system of accents. In §4.1 we discuss why pausal forms occur with lower disjunctives, with a focus on variation in Lev. 8–9. In §4.2 we take up the thorny issue of pausal forms with conjunctive accents; our argumentation concentrates on the example of Deut. 5.14,12 in contrast to the parallel of Exod. 20.10,14, a major crux treated by Revell (2015, 4ff, 13). §5 is a brief conclusion.

## **2.0. PROSODIC REPRESENTATION: PROSODIC LEVELS IN THE TIBERIAN TRANSCRIPTION**

Theories of prosodic structure in the tradition of Selkirk (1981; 1984; 1986; 2011), Hayes (1989), Truckenbrodt (1999), and Nespor and Vogel (2007) posit that prosodic representation mediates the relationship between phonology and syntax. On this view, a PROSODIC HIERARCHY organizes the domains in which phonological rules operate. From the word level up, the units of the prosodic hierarchy are commonly supposed to have at least the levels shown in (1a):

#### (1) Prosodic hierarchies

The Tiberian transcription also encodes a prosodic hierarchy, shown in (1b). It marks the bottom and top of the hierarchy very systematically (Dresher 1994; 2013). At the top, the biblical verse plays the role of the utterance. Like an utterance, a verse may consist of a single complete sentence, but may also be less than a sentence (a sentence fragment or a list, for example) or more than a sentence. For purposes of this study, we will take the verse divisions as given.2

Prosodic words are set off by blank spaces. A *maqqef* 'hyphen' is used to join one or more grammatical words into a single prosodic word (called by some a 'clitic group'). The principles governing cliticization are complex and intricately tied in with accentual division (Breuer 1982; Dresher 2009; Holmstedt and Dresher 2013). Whether a form is an independent prosodic word or a prosodically dependent clitic has implications for its phonology. For example, the accusative particle has the form ת ֵ א *ʔéːθ*

2 That is, we assume that the verse divisions were fixed before the internal parsing of verses indicated by the accents. However, the evidence is not conclusive; see Dotan (2007) for discussion.

and receives an accent when it is an independent prosodic word, and appears as ת־ ֶא *ʔɛθ-* when it is cliticized to a following word.3

#### **2.1. The TH Hierarchy of Disjunctive Accents**

Between the utterance (U) and the word (W), the TH transcription departs from the prosodic hierarchy in (1a). Rather than two distinct types of phrase—an intonational phrase and a phonological phrase—the Tiberian transcription parses each verse into a hierarchy of phrases. The Tiberian notation distinguishes two types of accents: a ranked series of disjunctives and the conjunctives that serve them. A CONJUNCTIVE ACCENT (C) on a word indicates that the word is part of the same phonological phrase as the word that follows it. A DISJUNCTIVE ACCENT (D*i*) indicates that a word is final in its phrase.

A phrase that ends in a disjunctive accent and which contains no other disjunctive accents is a MINIMAL PHRASE (MP; Strauss 2009). We identify the Tiberian MP with the phonological phrase P in the prosodic hierarchy. In the example in (2), the word ו ֤מ ֲח ּל ּי ַו *vaɟɟillɔːħamuː* 'and they fought' has a conjunctive accent and forms a minimal phrase with the hyphenated ֙ ה ּהוד ְי־י ֵ נ ְב *vaneː-juhuːðɔ́ː* 'men of Judah'. The third word, ם ַּ ַל ּוש ֣יר ּב *biːʀùːʃɔːláːjim* 'against Jerusalem', makes up a second minimal phrase by itself.

3 Our phonetic transcriptions of TH forms follows Khan (1987; 2013).

The MP forms the domain for three phonological rules: spirantization, external gemination (*deḥiq*), and *nesiga* (rhythmic stress retraction). We will illustrate one of these rules, spirantization, which applies as indicated in (3).

(3) Spirantization

A non-emphatic non-geminate plosive consonant—one of /b, g, d, k, p, t/—is spirantized to [v, ɣ, ð, x, f, θ], respectively, following a vowel, within words, as well as across words that are in the same minimal phrase (Kautzsch 1910, 75–76; Joüon and Muraoka 2006, 76–77).

In the first phrase in (2), the initial consonant of the second prosodic word *vaneː-juhuːðɔ́ː* is spirantized to [v] from underlying /b/ because it follows a vowel that ends the preceding word in the same MP. By contrast, the initial /b/ of *biːʀùːʃɔːláːjim* is not spirantized, though it also follows a word-final vowel, because the preceding word is not in the same MP.

The disjunctive accents form a hierarchy with four levels, from the strongest, D0, all the way down to the weakest, D3. TH phonological phrases are nested, so that a phrase with an accent

4 English translations are from *Tanakh* (Jewish Publication Society 1988), except where a more literal translation is more informative*.*

of level D*i* is divided by a phrase ending in accent D(*i*+1).5 In the example in (2) the second disjunctive, D1, terminates a non-MP comprising all three words. This non-MP is divided by accent D2.

The TH prosodic structure can be represented as a tree, where a phrase ending in a disjunctive D*i* is itself labelled D*i*. Here, the inner phrase is labelled D2 and the entire phrase is labelled D1, as shown in (4).

(4) Disjunctive accents in the form of a tree

Why does this phrase end in D1? Recall that the top of the hierarchy is labelled D0. The three prosodic words in (2) and (4) form just the beginning of a verse (5a); the phrasing of the complete verse is shown in (5b).

5 As there is no level below D3, if a phrase terminating in a D3 accent must be divided, it is divided by another D3 accent.

(5) Judg. 1.8

a. The verse

וַ יּ לּ חֲ מ֤ ו֙בְ נ ֵ י־יְ הודּ֙ה ֙בּ יר֣ ושּ לַַּ ם֙וַ יּ לְ כְ ד֣ ו֙אותַּ ה֙וַ יַ כּ והּ ֙לְ פּ י־חּ ָ רֶ ב֙וְ אֶ ת־הּ עּ ּ יר֙שּ לְ ח֥ ו֙ בּ א ֵ ש׃

'The Judahites attacked Jerusalem and captured it; they put it to the sword and set the city on fire.'

b. Phrasing of Judg. 1.8

The verse has ten prosodic words, labelled W1–W10. There are seven MPs, indicated by parentheses. Again, these MPs can be equated with the phonological phrase P, and serve as the domain of the three phonological rules mentioned above.

This verse is divided into two parts by D0 accents. The most significant break comes after W7, which ends the first half-verse. There is a maximum of two D0 accents in a verse. Every verse ends in a D0 accent; short verses may lack a second D0.6

The first half-verse, from W1 to W7, consists of five MPs. These phrases have an internal organization whereby the first two MPs—(W1 W2) and (W3)—are grouped together, and the next three MPs—(W4 W5), (W6), and (W7)—are grouped together. Thus, the main division in this half-verse comes after the second MP (W3). Since the whole half-verse ends in D0, it must be divided by a D1 accent, which falls here on W3. This D1 phrase is, in turn, divided by the D2 accent on W2. This is the three-word phrase in (4).

#### **2.2. Prosodic Transformations in TH**

Unlike the MP, the higher-level phrases are not associated with phonological rules; rather, they indicate how the MPs are organized. This hierarchical organization is important in determining the accentual phrasing. In the realization of the logogenic liturgical chant, various transformations were applied for prosodic and musical reasons (Wickes 1887; Cohen 1969; Breuer 1982; Price 1990).7 These transformations are sensitive to prosodic conditions that depend on the hierarchical organization of a verse.

6 Verses lacking an internal D0 are apt to occur in poetry; for example, every verse in Lam. 5 has only a final D0. Short verses also occur in prose; see Ben-David (1984) for a study of pausal forms in verses with only one D0 in the twenty-one prose books.

7 For a generative syntax of the two TH accent systems (the poetic system of the three poetic books Job, Proverbs, and Psalms, and the prose system of the other twenty-one books) see Price (1990).

There are two kinds of transformation: division and simplification. In division, words that would ordinarily form a single MP are divided into two MPs (Breuer 1982, 108–27; Dresher 1994, 34–36). Division occurs at the higher levels of the prosodic hierarchy, and most commonly in the domain of D0. It corresponds to a slowing down of the reading in prominent prosodic positions (Janis 1987).

The converse of division is simplification (Cohen 1969; Breuer 1982, 50–82; Price 1990; Dresher 1994, 36–37, 44–47): words that would ordinarily form two or more separate MPs are combined into a single MP. When simplification occurs, a disjunctive accent is transformed into a conjunctive.8 Simplification amounts to a speeding up of the reading in prosodically subordinate parts of a verse.

In the accent system of the twenty-one prose books, simplification occurs more freely as one moves down the hierarchy: D0 and D1 accents are only rarely transformed; D2 accents are transformed in particular limited contexts; and D3 accents are frequently transformed. For example, the D3 accents *gereš* and *legarmeh* often become conjunctives when they are close to a following D2 (Breuer 1982, 50). Simplification also frequently affects subordinate D3 accents, that is, D3 accents that divide other D3 accents.

8 Price (1990, 36, 170) refers to such conjunctive accents as 'virtual disjunctives'; though realized by a conjunctive accent, they retain structurally disjunctive status. Thus, the phrase in the domain of such a transformed disjunctive continues to be divided as if the accent were still a disjunctive.

For example, the D3 accent *teliša gedolah* is divided by the D3 *pazer*. This *pazer* is always transformed to the conjunctive *munaḥ* when it is immediately adjacent to the D3 it divides, and it is frequently transformed even when several words intervene between them (Breuer 1982, 74). Breuer gives the example shown in (6). The tree in (6a) shows what the phrasing would be in the domain of higher disjunctive accents; compare the phrasing of 'what I did to the Egyptians' in the domain of D0, shown in (7a). The label D3=D4 indicates that the D3 *pazer* is dividing a D3 domain, acting structurally (but not prosodically) like an accent that is one level lower than D3.

b. After transformation (actual phrasing)

אֲ שֶ ֣ ר עּ שּ ֣ ה לּ שְ נ ֵ י־שּ ר ֣ י צּ בְ א֣ ות יִּשְ רּ א ֙ל

'what he did to the two commanders of the forces of Israel' (1 Kgs 2.5)

The second D3 phrase in (6a), the one ending in *teliša gedolah*, has already undergone a round of simplification (as well as cliticization of 'to the two'); compare the more expansive phrasing in the domain of D2 shown in (7b).

b. The number two in a separate phrase before *sɔːʀéː* וִַת ֹאכַ ל֙אֶ ת־שְ נ ֵ י֙שּ ר ֵ י֙הַ חֲ מּ שּ ִ ים֙הּ רּ אשֹנּ ּ ים

'and consumed the first two captains of fifty' (2 Kgs 1.14)

In the system of accents used in the three poetic books simplification occurs at all levels of the prosodic hierarchy when a disjunctive accent is adjacent to the disjunctive to which it is subordinate (Breuer 1982, 222; Price 1990, 170). For example, the disjunctive *reviaʿ mugraš*, which would stand adjacent to *silluq* in Ps. 22.27 (8a), is transformed to the conjunctive *munaḥ* (8b).

b. After transformation (actual phrasing)

יְ חּ ּ י֙לְ בַ בְ כֶ ֣ ם֙לּ עַ ֵ ד׃֙

'Always be of good cheer!' lit. 'May your heart live forever.'

The various transformations reflect a prosodic reality: that phrases tend to get smaller in prosodically prominent positions, corresponding to a slowing of the tempo of speech; conversely, in prosodically subordinate positions phrases can accommodate more words by cancelling phrase boundaries that would otherwise be expected, corresponding to a speeding up of the tempo. Simplification in (8) has the effect of making the reading more fluid, by avoiding disjunctive accents on successive words.9 Thus, the Tiberian system of accents is capable of reflecting subtle nuances of phrasing that may have their origins in the actual speech patterns that lie behind the formalized recitation of the biblical text.

#### **3.0. PAUSAL FORMS AND THE INTONATIONAL PHRASE**

Unlike the Tiberian system, the modern prosodic hierarchy (1) includes an INTONATIONAL PHRASE, I, which is different from the phonological phrase, P. The I is commonly defined as the domain of an INTONATION CONTOUR (Gussenhoven 2004; Ladd 2008). In TH, the intonation contours of natural speech have been replaced by the accentual cantillation; therefore, this diagnostic is not available to us. It has been observed, however, that the ends of Is coincide with positions in which pauses may occur (Bierwisch 1966; Bing 1979; Nespor and Vogel 2007, Ch. 7). Therefore, we might expect pausal forms to be associated with the ends of Is.

The most obvious position where a pause can occur is, of course, at the end of an utterance. Within utterances it has been noted that certain syntactic constructions usually form their own I-phrase. These include parenthetical expressions, non-restrictive relative clauses, certain adjunct clauses, vocatives, lists, and other such expressions (see Selkirk 1981; 1984; Nespor and Vogel 2007, 187–220). This set of constructions aligns nicely with the constructions in which pausal forms have been observed to occur.

9 See Strauss (2009) for evidence that the accentuators employed strategies to minimize sequences of adjacent disjunctives in the twentyone books and thereby avoid 'choppy' readings.

Thus, Revell (1980, 166) observes that about 75 percent of the pausal forms in Deuteronomy occur at the ends of clauses. Within clauses, pausal forms are used in lists; TH characteristically groups items in lists by twos or threes, with a pausal form at the end of each such grouping. Elsewhere, pausal forms "seem generally to occur at the end of the most significant part or 'core' of the clause, and to divide it from less important phrases, often explanatory modifiers, which follow." Clauses in Deuteronomy that end in a contextual form "are usually closely related to the following clause, and they are usually short" (Revell 1980, 167). Revell (1980, 171–75) also observes that pausal forms within a clause occur in the same places as the interjection *nuʔuːm yhwh*  'declares the LORD'.

We have observed that a verb that precedes an object clause headed by the complementizer *kiː* 'that' tends to be in contextual form, as in (9a), whereas a verb preceding an adjunct clause headed by *kiː* 'because, for, but', etc., tends to be in pausal form, underlined in (9b).

כּ ֣ י֙שּ ֵ מְ עַ ו֙כּ י־שּ ּ ם֙י ֹ֥ אכְ לו֙לּ ֵ חֶ ם׃

'for they heard *that* they should eat bread there' (Gen. 43.25)

((*kiː ʃɔ̀ːmʕuː*)D1 ((*kiː-ʃɔ́ːm*)D1 (*joːxluː lɔ́ːħɛm*)))D0 for they.heard *that*-there they.should.eat bread

b. Adjunct clause headed by *kiː* 'but'

וְ גַ ֤ם֙אֶ ל־שֵֹ פְ ט יהֶ ם ֙ל ֹ֣ א֙שּ מ ַ עו֙כּ ֣ י֙זּ נ֗ ו֙אַ ֵ חֲ ר י ֙אֱ להּ ֣ ים֙אֲ ח רּ ַ ים֙וַ יּ ֵ שְ תַ חֲ וּ ו֙לּ הֶ ָ ם 'And yet they would not hearken unto their judges*, but* they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them' (Judg. 2.17)

((vaɣaːm ʔɛl-ʃoːftˤeːhɛ́m) D2 (loː ʃɔːmeːʕuː))D1 ((kiː zɔːnuː)D2 and.yet to-their.judges not they.heard but they.whored

In (9a) the second instance of *kiː*, glossed as 'that', heads a clause that is the direct object of the verb 'they heard'. An Iphrase boundary does not typically intervene between a verb and its direct object, and therefore the verb *ʃɔ̀ːmʕuː* is in its contextual form. In (9b) the clause headed by *kiː* is much less closely linked to the verb semantically, and presumably syntactically as well. We expect this kind of *kiː* to begin a new I-phrase, causing the verb *ʃɔːméːʕuː* to end the preceding I-phrase, and indeed it is in pausal form. Note that despite this crucial difference in the phrasing, both verbs 'hear' are assigned the same D1 accent (*zaqef*).

I-phrases, hence pausal forms, are not entirely determined by syntax. The length of a phrase, as well as factors such as speech tempo, rhetorical pause, and emphasis play a role (Nespor and Vogel 2007, 193–205). The position of a phrase within the utterance (or biblical verse), as well as semantic factors, might lead to variation in whether or not a particular construction ends in an I or in a P.

The phonology of pausal forms is also consistent with what we expect to find at the ends of I-phrases. We commonly find that words at the end of an I tend to be pronounced with some combination of higher stress and longer articulation. It appears that these factors were important in the creation of the special phonology of pausal forms. In (10) we list some typical differences between contextual and pausal forms. 10

(10) Some contextual forms and their pausal counterparts

In (10a, b, c) a stressed vowel *áː* or *ɛ́ː* in the contextual form corresponds to pausal *ɔ́ː*. In (10d), the contextual form has a *shewa* (here transcribed *a*) followed by a stressed final syllable; in the pausal form the stress is on the penultimate syllable, in which the vowel *ɛ* corresponds to the contextual *shewa*. The alternation in (10e) is similar, except that pausal stressed ɛ́ː in the penult corresponds to the lack of a vowel (quiescent *shewa*) in the contextual form. In (10f), the contextual form has stress on

10 For various classifications of pausal forms, see Goerwitz (1993), Ben-David (1990; 1995), and Revell (2015). Some forms, such as the second person masculine singular pronoun, display a three-way alternation: אֵּ תּ ה pause major and ,*ʔáːttɔː* אֵַ תּ ה pause' minor ',*ː́ʔattɔ* אַ תֵּ ה contextual *ʔɔ́ːttɔː*. We do not consider minor pause here (see DeCaen 2005; Revell 2015, 28–30).

the final syllable with no change in the vocalism. The stress alternation is reversed in (10g): here, the contextual form has penultimate stress and the pausal form has final stress, with a different vowel in the final syllable.

Though the motivation for these contextual/pausal alternations is obscured in the medieval Tiberian pronunciation, the general consensus is that the differences originated in the longer vowel length and heightened stress of forms in pause compared with contextual forms (see, for example, Blau 1981; 2010). Thus, the alternations in (10a, b, c) historically derive from stressed short /a/ or /i/ being lengthened in pause to /aː/, which subsequently became /ɔː/.

The form in (10d) originates from /ja+ʃmor+u/ with word stress on the penultimate vowel. In context (non-pausal positions), the word stress was not strong enough to preserve the penultimate vowel from reduction, with concomitant shift of the stress to the final syllable. In pause, the word stress was reinforced by the main phrase stress, and the penultimate vowel was lengthened, preserving it from reduction (Blau 2010, 154). A similar derivation accounts for (10e). In (10f), the stress shifted from the penultimate to the final syllable with reduction of the penultimate vowel. In these forms, according to Blau, the pausal forms maintain the older stress pattern and preserve a syllable that is reduced or deleted in context. The pausal form does not always preserve the original stress; in (10g) it is the contextual form that maintains the older stress on the penult, and in pause the stress shifts from the penult to a closed final syllable (Blau 2010, 155).

Though pausal forms show a variety of manifestations, it can be said in sum that the characteristic phonological processes that gave rise to pausal forms are heightened stress and vowel lengthening or resistance to reduction, that is, processes that might be expected to occur at the edges of I-phrases.

It is clear, then, from both the positions in which pausal forms occur and the nature of the phonological processes that created them, that pausal forms occur at the ends of I-phrases. But where is the I-phrase in the TH transcription?

## **4.0. WHY PAUSAL FORMS CANNOT ALIGN WITH THE TIBERIAN SYSTEM OF ACCENTS**

The answer is that *there is no I* in the TH accent system, and this is the crux of the matter. Rather than the two types of phrase distinguished in the modern prosodic hierarchy, I and P, the TH accent system employs what Wickes (1887) calls the CONTINUOUS DICHOTOMY, that is, the hierarchy of disjunctive accents. We might try to equate the D0 disjunctives with I; in fact, most pausal forms (~ 80 percent) do fall on a D0 accent. We would expect a D0 accent to mark the end of an I-phrase: the end of a verse, marked by the D0 *silluq,* almost by definition ends an I-phrase; and the main verse division, marked by the D0 *atnaḥ*, is very often associated with a major pause, for either grammatical or prosodic reasons.11 The problem is that there is a maximum of two

11 We refer here to the twenty-one prose books; *atnaḥ* in the accent system of the three poetic books has a different status. The regular association of the D0 accents with pausal forms may have contributed to the view that pausal positions are systematically marked by the

D0 accents for each verse. I-phrases, however, are not limited in this way: in a complex verse, for example, or a verse with a list, there can be multiple Is. We can try to include lower-level disjunctive accents as also representing I; but this would fail to account for the fact that these accents are more commonly associated with non-pausal forms.

We have argued above that the various prosodic transformations—the division and simplification of phrases, and the associated change of conjunctives to disjunctives and disjunctives to conjunctives—must have originated in actual prosodic patterns in the living language that gave rise to the TH phrasing. It is these transformations that make the TH accents a flexible system capable of reflecting subtle aspects of phrasing. Our hypothesis, however, is that the prosody of the living language, like other languages, distinguished I-phrases from P-phrases. The biggest difference that we expect to find between the two is in the domain of simplification: a simple P-phrase boundary is weaker than an I-phrase boundary. There would be contexts in which a P boundary, but not an I boundary, would be cancelled as part of simplification.

Since the TH system does not distinguish I from P, we might expect it to treat Is as if they were Ps. The system is not capable of representing Is in whatever part of the prosodic tree they may occur due to the vagaries of the syntactic, semantic, and prosodic

accents, contrary to what has been demonstrated by Revell (1980; 1981; 2015). Indeed, Ben-David (1984) demonstrates that when *atnaḥ* is lacking and the major division in a verse is marked by the D1 *zaqef*, then pausal forms occur with this *zaqef* as if it were a D0 accent.

factors that are associated with Is. In §4.1 we will show why pausal forms cannot be consistently associated with particular disjunctive accents (except the D0 accents), and in §4.2 we will consider the more extreme cases of a pausal form on a conjunctive accent.

Before proceeding, we would like to briefly mention two possible sources of pause-accent mismatches that we will not consider here. First, we set aside possible scribal lapses. For example, we find the pausal hypercorrection ל ַע ָ ּמ ּמ *mimmɔ́ːʕal* 'above' at Job 3.4,8 in the Leningrad Codex. In this case, the superior Aleppo Codex has the correct non-pausal form ל ַע ָ ַמ ּמ *mimmáːʕal*.

Second, we do not deny that that there may be genuine examples of clashing readings in the text. Breuer (1992) has collected a number of such cases (see Strauss Sherebrin 2013 for discussion), and Revell (2015, 21–22) mentions a number of verses in which the distribution of pausal forms might suggest a different verse division than the one suggested by the accents. A key element of this type of mismatch is the existence of an *alternative* phrasing that would resolve the mismatch; that is, the accents give one way of phrasing the verse, and the pausal forms suggest a different, but *equally possible*, phrasing that the accentuators could have chosen.

As we will see, the cases we will consider, which account for the majority of cases of pausal forms on lower disjunctives and conjunctives, are not resolvable in this way, and are indeed 'endemic' to the TH system itself.

#### **4.1. Pausal Forms on Lower Disjunctive Accents**

Consider again the two examples above in (9): in (9a), there is a small break after the verb 'heard' (a P-boundary) and the verb has the contextual form ו ַע ְמ ֵ ּש *ʃɔ̀ːmʕuː*; in (9b), a more significant break follows this verb (an I-boundary in natural speech), which has the pausal form עו ַ מ ּש *ʃɔːméːʕuː*. In (11) we give the phrasing of these verse portions indicated by the accents (only disjunctive accents shown) in tree form, indicating the hypothesized P and I phrases. Despite this crucial difference in phrasing, both verbs 'heard' are assigned the same D1 accent (*zaqef*). This is because both verbs stand at the main division of a D0 phrase, and a D0 phrase must be divided by a D1 accent. These structures clearly show the RELATIVE value of the accents emphasized by commentators going back to Wickes (1887). In this system, the difference between a P-phrase and an I-phrase cannot be indicated.

(11) I-phrase and P-phrase both marked with D1 *zaqef*

a. Gen. 43.25

b. Judg. 2.17

Consider next the Levitical expression ט ּח ְש ּי ַו *vaɟɟiʃħɔ́ːtˤ* 'and he slaughtered [it]' in pause with stressed [ɔ́ː]. This occurs three times, all in Lev. 8, in verses 15,1, 19,1, and 23,1; compare the non-pausal form ט ַח ְש ּי ַו *vaɟɟiʃħáːtˤ* with stressed [aː], which occurs elsewhere (three times in Lev. 9, in 8,5, 12,1, and 18,1; also twice in Jeremiah, in 39.6,1 and 52.10,1). The three pausal forms are sentences in their own right, word-sentences, as it were, and so we expect the pausal form terminating its own I-phrase. In contrast, the non-pausal forms are not sentences. Rather, the verb takes an overt object, and does not coincide with the right edge of an I-phrase.

If the word-sentence *vaɟɟiʃħɔ́ːtˤ* terminated a verse, it would be assigned the D0 *silluq*, as befits a word that is final in an I. It does not, however, appear verse-finally in our text. In the three occurrences in Lev. 8, it appears verse-initially. We are thus confronted by the unusual phenomenon of a major break right at the beginning of a verse.

In Lev. 8.19, the word-sentence terminates the first halfverse, as shown in (12). As such, it receives the D0 *atnaḥ*. In this verse, then, the end of the I-phrase coincides felicitously with a D0 accent.

(12) Phrasing of Lev. 8.19

Now consider Lev. 8.23 (13). This verse starts similarly to 8.19, but it has another six prosodic words to the right, which create a new half-verse. Therefore, what was previously the entire verse now becomes the first half of the verse governed by D0 *atnaḥ*. But now the accent on *vaɟɟiʃħɔːtˤ* is no longer at the end of a half-verse; it cannot remain a D0. Rather, due to the law of continuous dichotomy, it must be demoted to D1 (in this case *šalšelet*, the lawful substitution for expected *s e golta*). The result is that the I-phrase is now assigned a D1.

(13) Phrasing of Lev. 8.23

וַ יּ שְ חָּ ט׀ וַ יּ קַ ֤ ח מֹשֶ ה ֙ מּ דּ מַ ו וַ יּ ת ִ ן עַ ל־תְ נ֥ וך אֵֹ זֶ ן־אַ הֲ רֹּ ן הַ יְ מּ נּ ָית וְ עַ ל־בֹ֤ הֶ ן יּ דו ֙ הַ יְ מּ נַּ ית וְ עַ ל־בֹ֥ הֶ ן רַ גְ לּ ו הַ יְ מּ נּ ֵ ית׃

Lev. 8.15 is even longer. The addition of a seven-word clause creates a new half-verse. As before, the new D0 forces the demotion of the previous D0 to D1; thus, the D1 marking the word-sentence in Lev. 8.23 is now demoted further to D2 *reviaʿ*.

#### (14) Phrasing of Lev. 8.15

וַ יּ שְ חּ֗ ט וַ יּ קַֹ ח מֹשֶ ֤ ה אֶ ת־הַ דּ ם ֙ וִַיּ ת ן עַ ל־קַ רְ נֹ ות הַ מּ זְ ב ֤ חַ ֙ סּ בּ יב ֙ בְ אֶ צְ בּ עַ ו וַ יְ חַ ט ּ א אֶ ת־ הַ מּ זְ ב ָ חַ ֙ וְ אֶ ת־הַ דּ ֗ ם יּ צַ ק ֙ אֶ ל־יְ ס֣ וד הַ מּ זְ ב ַ חַ ֙ וַ ֵ ַיְ קַ דְ ש ּ הו לְ כַ פ ֥ ר עּ לּ ֵ יו׃

In summary, the three verses are shown together in (15). The intuition embodied by contemporary prosodic theory is that the initial word is *equally* an I-phrase in all these verses, irrespective of how much material follows. The continuous dichotomy, which is otherwise correct in its assumption that phrasing is based on dependencies that involve the entire verse, cannot assign I-phrases to a consistent set of accents.

(And it was slaughtered.)**I D0** (Moses dashed the blood against all sides of the altar.) **D0**

b. Lev. 8.23

((And it was slaughtered.)**I D1** (Moses took some of its blood and put it on the ridge of Aaron's right ear,)) **D0** (and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.) **D0**

c. Lev. 8.15

(((And it was slaughtered.)**I D2** (Moses took the blood and with his finger put some on each of the horns of the altar,)) **D1** (cleansing the altar;)) **D0** (then he poured out the blood at the base of the altar. Thus he consecrated it in order to make expiation upon it.) **D0**

#### **4.2. Pausal Forms with Conjunctive Accents**

In a small number of extreme cases, a pausal form, which indicates that a word is at the end of its I-phrase, is assigned a *conjunctive* accent, which indicates that a word is medial in its phrase. Revell (2015, 4 n.5) lists twenty-seven such tokens. Of these, he marks nine as questionable. For example, ך ֣ ֶט ּפ ְש ּמ ְל *lamiʃpɔːtˤɛ́ːxɔː* (Ps. 119.43,9) and ך ֥ ֶט ּפ ְש ּמ ֵ ְכ *kamiʃpɔːtˤɛ́ːxɔː* (Ps. 119.149,5) look like pausal forms in the singular; however, in both cases, the forms are understood as 'judgements' in the *plural*, and are thus not subject to pausal variation.12

We find an additional five tokens to be questionable on the grounds that it is unlikely that the pausal form marks the end of an I-phrase. For example, 1 Sam. 7.17 has pausal ט ֣ ּפ ּש *ʃɔːfɔ́ ́ ːtˤ*  'judged' immediately preceding a short direct object, a very unlikely environment for an I-phrase boundary (16a); indeed, the preceding verse has the non-pausal form of the same word in a very similar context (16b).13

(16) Verb in pausal form before direct object

a. Unexpected pausal form

```
וְ שּ ּ ם שּ פּ ֣ ט֙אֶ ת־יּ שְ רּ א ָ ל
```
'and there too he would judge Israel' (1 Sam. 7.17)

((*vaʃɔ́ːm*)D1 (*ʃɔːfɔ́ːtˤ ʔɛθ-jisrɔːʔéːl*))D0 and.there he.judged ACC.Israel

12 This interpretation is reflected in the Masoretic list Mm 2028: 'five times written defectively'.

13 Fixity of pausal idiom appears to be the explanation for the conspicuous exception ץ ֶר ֵּא ּו *vɔːʔɔ́ːrɛsˤ* 'and earth', a pausal form that appears in Isa. 65.17,6 and Prov. 25.3,3, both times in close connection to a following word that would appear to rule out an I-phrase boundary. It is the subject of Masoretic note Mm 3640: 'three times exceptionally [vɔ], else all in the [fixed] idiom 'heavens and earth' [in pause] (the third exceptional token with [vɔ] is found in Isa. 26.19,13 on disjunctive D1 *ṭifḥa*).

#### b. Expected non-pausal form

וְ֙שּ פַ֙ט ֙ אֶ ת־יּ שְ רּ א לַ֙

'and acted as judge over Israel' (1 Sam. 7.16) (vaʃɔːfaːtˤ)D2 (*ʔɛθ*-*jisrˤɔːʔéːl*)D1 and.he.judged ACC-Israel

Leaving aside questionable cases, we are left with eleven tokens of pausal forms in plausible pausal contexts (that is, where we would expect an I-phrase boundary), of which Revell (2015) treats five directly: Deut. 5.14,12; Isa. 65.1,8; Mal. 1.6,8, 6,13; Ezek. 17.15,11.14 Though they are very few, they nevertheless cannot be dismissed as errors, and require some explanation. It is cases such as these that we will be concerned with here.

Though a pausal form with a conjunctive accent amounts to a contradiction, it does not necessarily stem from different reading traditions, or from a lack of understanding on the part of the accentuators of the function of pausal forms, as Revell (2015) concludes. Rather, we propose that such contradictions are *byproducts* of the continuous dichotomy and the rules of simplification discussed in §4.2 that transform disjunctive accents into conjunctive ones.

Consider the portion of Deut. 5.14 in (17), a long verse which contains a long list. 15 The pausal forms are underlined.

14 In addition to the verses mentioned above these include Isa. 32.11,5; 49.18,10; Mic. 3.11,12; Ps. 3.9,5; 47.5,9; 119.125,2.

15 There is no relevant distinction between the 'lower' and 'upper' cantillation in our example. The only difference is in the D0: in the lower cantillation, it is *silluq* (the verse ends here); in the upper cantillation, it is *atnaḥ* (the verse goes on).

(17) Portion of Deut. 5.14: A pausal form with a conjunctive accent

ל ֹ֣ א֙תַ עֲ שֶ ֣ ה֙כּ ל־מְ לּ אכָּ ה֙אַ תּ ֣ ה֙ובּ נְ ךֵ ־ובּ תֶ ֣ ך וְ עַ בְ דְ ךֵ ־וִַאֲ מּ תֶ ך֙וְ שורְ ךֹ ֙וַ חֲ מֵֹ רְ ךָ ֙וְ כּ ל־ בְ הֶ מְ תֶ֗ ך֙וְ ג ֵ ַרְ ך ֙אֲ שֶ ֣ ר֙בּ שְ עּ רֶ ַ יך֙לְ מַ֗ עַ ן֙יּ נִ וחַ ֙עַ בְ דְ ך֥ ֙וַ אֲ מּ תְ ךּ ֙כּ מֵ ָ וך׃

The main division of the verse portion in (17) is after 'your settlements'; as this accent divides a D0 phrase, it is assigned the D1 *zaqef*. Accordingly, all the rest of the verse is now in the domain of this D1. Moreover, everything after 'work' is part of a list. In TH, lists are typically grouped into twos and threes, and the final item in each group receives a pausal form ('your settlements' has no special pausal form). The list in (17) has four main members: the first item, labelled *A*, itself contains three items ('you', 'your son', 'your daughter'); the second member, *B*, has two ('your male slave', 'your female slave'); the third, *C*, has three ('your ox', 'your ass', 'any of your cattle'); and *D* has one item that comprises three words (lit. 'and your stranger that is in your settlements').

Lists are typically parsed as left-branching structures, as shown in (18). In a left-branching structure, disjunctives get progressively weaker proceeding from right to left; that is, an item earlier in the list occurs on a lower disjunctive (with a higher index) than a later item.

(18) Phrasing of lists in Tiberian Hebrew

The last item in the list in Deut. 5.14, item *D* in (17), ends on D1; therefore, plugging in the other items predicts, correctly, a D2 accent on item *C*, and a D3 accent on item *B*. According to the formula, the accent on item *A* should be D(3+1) = D4. Recall, however, that the disjunctive hierarchy runs only to D3. When required, a D3 phrase is divided by another D3, resulting in a 'flattening' of the prosody. Recall also that phrase simplification, that is, the merger of two minimal phrases into one, applies most readily in the D3 domain, with the result that a D3 accent is transformed into a conjunctive. Evidently, this occurs in Deut. 5.14: the first D3, with its pausal form ך ֣ ֶת ּוב *uvittɛ́xɔː* is replaced by transformation by a conjunctive accent, C, and we obtain the tree in (19).

(19) Phrasing of the list in Deut. 5.14

The accentuation and parsing of the verse portion in (17), minus the last item in the list, is shown in detail in (20). We observe the same sequence of two conjunctive accents before a *teliša gedolah* that we saw in (6), where the second *munaḥ* is a conversion of a subordinate *pazer* that divides another D3.

(20) Phrasing of a portion of Deut. 5.14

It is instructive to consider the contrasting parallel in Exod 20:10 (upper cantillation), shown in (21).

(21) Portion of Exod. 20.10 (upper cantillation)

```
וְ ג רְ ךּ֙ אֲ שֶ ֣ ר בּ שְ עּ רֶ ַ יך עַ בְ דְ ךֹ֙ וַ אֲ מּ ֵ תְ ךָ֙ ובְ הֶ מְ תֶ֗ ך אַ תּ ֣ ה ובּ נְ ךֵ ־וִבּ תֶ ך ל ֹ֣ א תַ עֲ שֶ ֣ ה כּ ל־
                                                                                מְ לּ אכָּ ה
```

This parallel passage differs in two ways. Obviously, 'your daughter' is no longer assigned a conjunctive accent: here in the upper reading it is the D3 *teliša gedolah*. The bizarre combination of pause and conjunctive has vanished! Second, 'female slave' is no longer aligned with the end of an I, and so is no longer in pausal form. Breuer (1982, 72) parses this verse (which he numbers Exod. 20.9) in the upper cantillation; a detailed tree based on his parse is given in (22).

(22) Phrasing of a portion of Exod. 20.10 (upper cantillation)

The hierarchical structure of this list is revealed even more transparently in the accentuation of the lower cantillation (23), in which the verse is shorter, and the pausal 'your daughter' is assigned the D2 accent *reviaʿ*.

(23) Phrasing of a portion of Exod. 20.10 (lower cantillation)

Because the last list item 'and your stranger who is within your settlements' ends in D0 (not shown in (23)), all the disjunctive accents move up one grade, and so we have no D3 accents dividing D3 accents, which obscures the hierarchical structure. Notice also that 'your son' is no longer cliticized in the lower cantillation, because the prosody is less compressed at higher levels in the prosodic tree.

Now that we have seen 'your daughter' assigned disjunctive accents in both readings of Exod. 20.10, let us return to the problematic conjunctive on this word in Deut. 5.14, and pursue our hypothesis that it is a transformed disjunctive. In (24), we give our hypothesized untransformed structure of the tree in (20).

#### (24) Phrasing of (20) before transformation of D3 to C

In the transformed structure in (20), 'and your male slave' is cliticized to 'and your female slave', forming one prosodic word. If this cliticization takes place independently of the transformation of *pazer*, then the transformation is obligatory, because the *pazer* is adjacent to the following *teliša gedolah*. In (24) we have made the more conservative assumption that 'and your male slave' is not joined to 'and your female slave' with *maqqef*, causing the *pazer* to be separated from the following disjunctive by one word. Thus, we cannot say that the same list structure that yields the upper and lower cantillation in Exod. 20.10 will *inevitably* result in a conjunctive *munaḥ* on the pausal form 'and.your.daughter'; but it is very likely.

It remains to explain why 'your female slave' is pausal וַ אֲ מּ ֵ תְ ךָ֙ pausal-non but 5.14,14, .Deut at *ːχɔː́vaːʔamɔːθɛ* וִַאֲ מּ תֶ ך *vaːʔamɔ̀ːθχɔ́ː* at Exod. 20.10,14. The difference is correlated with a change in the way the list elements are grouped: in Deut. 5.14, the servants are grouped with the family (presumably after being grouped by themselves in the untransformed structure), whereas in Exod. 20.10 they are grouped with the cattle. Revell (2015, 5) comments that the difference possibly reflects "a change in the position of servants in the society, which took place between the fixing of the vowels in the reading-tradition and the fixing of the accents." That is, the grouping in Exod. 20.10, where the servants are with the cattle and pausal 'your daughter' is final in its group, reflects the older grouping; in Deut. 5.14, the servants were promoted to join the family members, stranding 'your daughter' with a pausal form in a non-pausal position in the middle of grouping. "The two traditions were separate, each meaningful on its own" (Revell 2015, 13).

This proposal seems to us to be unnecessary. The key difference between the two lists is that in Exod. 20.10 the animals are represented by one item ('your cattle'), whereas in Deut. 5.14 there are three ('your ox', 'your ass', and 'all your cattle'). Certainly, the choice of detailing the types of livestock (Deut.) or not (Exod.) is extralinguistic, and this choice may or may not be meaningful. But *once that decision is made*, the formal TH constraint of grouping items by twos and threes suffices to account for the changed position of the servants. In Exod. 20.10, as shown in (21), group *A* and *B* each have three items. By contrast, in Deut. 5.14 (17), the family group (*A*) has three items, and the animal group (*C*) has three items. Thus, the servants must form a group of two by themselves (*B*); then the continuous dichotomy and the rules of simplification require groups *A* and *B* to be combined in this verse.

As a final example we will consider Ps. 3.9,5, which is an example of a pausal form on a conjunctive accent in the poetic books.

#### (25) Phrasing of a portion of Ps. 3.9

עַ ֵ ל־עַ מְ ךּ ֙בּ רְ כּ תֶ ֣ ך֙סֶ ֵ לּ ה׃

'Your blessing be upon your people! *Selah.*'

In (25) we find pausal ך ֣ ֶת ּכ ְר ּב *viʀχɔːθɛ́ːχɔː* on the conjunctive *munaḥ*. We have seen the accent sequence *ṭarḥa munaḥ silluq* in (8b), where *munaḥ* is the transformation of *reviaʿ mugraš* when it stands next to *silluq*. That is, this *munaḥ* is a 'virtual disjunctive' standing in place of the D1 *reviaʿ mugraš* (26), whose transformation is obligatory in this context.

(26) Phrasing of a portion of Ps. 3.9 before the transformation of *reviaʿ mugraš*

We observed above that this transformation has the effect of avoiding a sequence of adjacent disjunctives, resulting in a more fluid reading. This works well in Ps. 22.27 (8), where an internal P boundary before the last word 'forever' is not necessary. It does not work so well in Ps. 3.9, where there is a strong I-boundary, marked by a pausal form, before the last word, *selah*, which is not a part of the preceding sentence at all.16 The transformation of *reviaʿ mugraš*, however, is not sensitive to the difference between P and I, and therefore proceeds in this example, also, with the result that the pausal form ends up with a conjunctive accent.

It follows that the appearance of a pausal form with a conjunctive accent, though seemingly contradictory, is nevertheless the logical result of applying the iron rule of the continuous dichotomy and the attendant rules of simplification that transform disjunctive accents into conjunctive ones. We leave the reader to consider whether this mode of explanation also extends to the other verses with pausal forms on conjunctive accents, listed above and in note 14, as we would argue.

16 Pausal forms do not always precede *selah*; for example, Ps. 32.4,10 has contextual ץ ּי ֣ ַק *qáːjisˤ* 'summer' before *selah.* This may indicate that an I boundary did not always have to occur before *selah*. Another possibility is that the crucial difference between Ps. 3.9,5 and Ps. 32.4,10 is the type of word before *selah*. Ben-David (1984; 1995) observes that words of type (10e), like *viʀxɔːθɛ́ːxɔː*, in which the stressed vowel of the pausal form corresponds to a reduced or deleted vowel in the contextual form, appear in pausal form more readily than words of type (10a–c), like *qáːjisˤ* (pausal ץ ּי ָ ּק *qɔ́ːjisˤ*).

#### **5.0. CONCLUSION**

We agree with Revell's (2015, 6) conclusion that "the vocalization (including the stress patterns of the words) was fixed in the reading tradition first, and the melody marked by the accents came into use later." This is necessarily the case, because the distribution of pausal forms cannot be derived from the placement of the accents. It does not follow, however, that the vocalization, including the pausal forms, derives from a different reading tradition from the one that created the accents. Nor does it necessarily follow that the lack of coordination between the pausal forms and the accents indicates that the function of the latter was no longer apparent to the Tiberian scholars.

Of course, we have not excluded these scenarios. It is an empirical question to what extent the accentuators appreciated the significance of the contextual/pausal alternants. Our claim here is that the mismatches we have discussed between the pausal forms and the accents are not *in themselves* sufficient grounds to draw conclusions about this issue, because they have another explanation.

As Aronoff (1985, 28) writes in connection with the Tiberian accentual transcription, "any orthography must… involve a linguistic theory." In other words, the Tiberian transcription is not a pure record of recitation *per se*, but is filtered through a theory, in this case, the continuous dichotomy, the hierarchy of disjunctive accents, and the transformation rules involved in the division and simplification of phrases. The Tiberian theory of prosody is capable of reflecting subtle prosodic distinctions and in general provides one of the most detailed prosodic representations of an extended text ever devised. Crucially, however, this theory of prosody does not have a way of systematically marking I-phrases.

We have argued that the Tiberian system of accents, because it does not distinguish between P-phrases and I-phrases, simply does not have the means of ensuring that pausal forms will be systematically assigned to certain accents in a predictable way. To preserve the pausal forms from prosodic subordination (that is, from appearing on lower disjunctives and conjunctives), the Tiberian scribes would have had to develop a dedicated set of accents that could be assigned to phrases ending in pausal forms, thus mimicking our contemporary division of phrases into P-phrases and I-phrases. It may not have been a trivial task to incorporate such accents into the Tiberian system; be that as it may, they did not do it.

The fact that the Tiberian scribes nevertheless recorded pausal forms even when they did not fit well with the accents is evidence that their over-riding goal was to faithfully and precisely represent the recitation tradition as they received it, and that "the distribution of pausal forms is, in fact, due to the generally accurate preservation of an ancient tradition" (Revell 1980, 179).

#### **6.0. REFERENCES**

Aronoff, Mark. 1985. 'Orthography and Linguistic Theory: The Syntactic Basis of Masoretic Hebrew Punctuation'. *Language* 61(1): 28–72.

———. 2011. 'The Syntax–Phonology Interface'. In *The Handbook of Phonological Theory*, 2nd edition, edited by John A. Goldsmith, Jason Riggle, and Alan C. L. Yu, 435–84. Oxford: Blackwell.

## **SAMUEL BEN JACOB'S TREATMENT OF EXCEPTIONAL VOCALIC SHEWAS**

## *Kim Phillips*

————————————————————————————

#### **1.0. INTRODUCTION: THE PRONUNCIATION OF** *SHEWA***1**

Various masoretic treatises discuss the pronunciation of *shewa* in particular the significant question of when a *shewa* is to be considered silent, and when it is sounded.2 The rules laid out in these treatises do not in all respects conform to the rules found in modern grammars (which have been influenced by later medieval grammatical works in which the earlier Tiberian pronunciation had already been largely forgotten).

In crude summary, these early masoretic treatises state that the *shewa* is vocal:

2 Treatises of particular significance in this regard include the *Sefer Diqduqe haṭ-Ṭeʿamim* (ed. Dotan 1967), the anonymous *Treatise on the Shewa* (Levy 1936), and the *Hidayat al-Qari* (Eldar 1994; Khan 2020).

1 I am grateful to Dr Ben Outhwaite and Prof. Geoffrey Khan for their patient discussion with me of many of the rules and details contained in this study.

x If it is the second of two consecutive, word-internal *shewa*s

Elsewhere, the *shewa* is silent. In particular, an isolated, word-internal *shewa* is generally silent—even when preceded by an inherently long vowel (e.g., בו ְת ּכ(.3

Nonetheless, the early masoretic treatises discuss many different phonetic contexts in which an isolated, word-internal *shewa* not under a geminated consonant is pronounced as vocal, in contrast to the general rule. These include the *shewa* under the מ of the word-initial cluster -ְְמ ַה) under certain conditions); a *shewa* under the first of a pair of identical consonants (always when preceded by a long vowel, and often when preceded by a short vowel); the *shewa* in certain forms of the verbs ך ר ּב ְת ִה/ךְַרְ ב, ךְַלְּה, דְ ַרְּי, לְַכְּא, שְ רְ ג ;the *shewa* beneath a sibilant following conjunctive *waw* (under certain conditions); various other smaller classes of phonetic contexts (Yeivin 1968, 22–49).

This paper surveys how Samuel ben Jacob, the scribe responsible for producing the Leningrad Codex, treats these exceptional vocalic *shewa*s. In addition to the Leningrad Codex itself, data will be gathered from codices L17 and Gott 27—manuscripts of the Former Prophets also produced by Samuel ben Jacob, as well as Lm and RNL EVR II B 60, Torah manuscripts by the same

3 For accessible overviews of the issue, see Yeivin (2003, 230–238); Khan (2012, 86–92). This paper relies heavily on Yeivin (1968 and 2003).

scribe.4 It is to be hoped that consulting multiple Samuel ben Jacob manuscripts will facilitate distinguishing between the intentional and the accidental in his work, and thereby reveal a more accurate and trustworthy picture of his practice. Data from the Aleppo Codex will also be presented to serve as background to Samuel ben Jacob's approach.

#### **2.0. REPRESENTING THE EXCEPTIONAL VOCALIC** *SHEWA***S**

Taking the early masoretic codices *en masse*, the most common means of indicating an exceptional vocal *shewa* is by means of the *gaʿya*. The *gaʿya* is placed on the vowel immediately preceding the *shewa* and serves to indicate the vocalic nature of the following *shewa*. Yeivin refers to this type of *gaʿya* as 'phonetic', rather than 'musical' (Yeivin 2003, 221–26).5

4 For Lm, see Breuer (1992); for Gott 27, see Gottheil (1905), and Yeivin (1993, 188–89). These MSS have, or had, colophons explicitly naming Samuel ben Jacob as their scribe. For a detailed description of MS L17, and a demonstration that it is indeed the work of Samuel ben Jacob, see Phillips (2017). After I had completed a first draft of this paper, Joseph Ofer (2018) announced, in a lecture in Krakow, his discovery of yet another manuscript by the same scribe: RNL EVR II B 60. I have not been able to examine this manuscript thoroughly, but initial soundings have already yielded data useful for this study. Images of Lm and Gott 27 are not currently available to scholars, so I have been able to glean information germane to this study only as it appears, *ad hoc*, in the available scholarship.

5 Though the Masoretes themselves do not make this distinction explicit, it seems that they were aware of it. The early masoretic codices themselves (or rather the Masoretes and scribes behind these codices) were

Often, the phonetic context in which this class of phonetic *gaʿya* is used would not be a suitable context for a musical *gaʿya*. Hence, there is frequently no formal ambiguity as to whether a particular *gaʿya* is musical or phonetic—provided one has a reasonable grasp of the various different classes of *gaʿya*s and their usual environments. Nonetheless, certain manuscripts—notably the Aleppo Codex, and to a lesser extent British Museum Or. 4445—have a propensity to mark the presence of an exceptional vocalic *shewa* by using a composite *shewa* (Yeivin 1968, 24; 2003, §429). Samuel ben Jacob also uses the composite *shewa* for this purpose, though to a far lesser degree. The composite *shewa* can either be combined with, or replace, the use of phonetic *gaʿya* in any given instance.

Formally, then, the early masoretic codices either mark these exceptional vocalic *shewa*s in one of three ways—phonetic *gaʿya* only; composite *shewa* only; both phonetic *gaʿya* and composite *shewa*—or leave them unmarked.6

The ensuing data present Samuel ben Jacob's practice in representing the exceptional, vocalic nature of the *shewa*s in

6 In this category, the *shewa* is known to be vocalic either because it is unambiguously presented as such in other early masoretic codices, or because it is mentioned as being vocalic by the various masoretic sources that discuss this issue.

clearly aware that these classes of *gaʿya*s (phonetic versus musical) were distinct to a greater degree than, say, the various different sub-classes of musical *gaʿya*. This is demonstrated by the fact that while the early codices only rarely put two musical *gaʿya*s on the same word (Yeivin 2003, §391), there is no such hesitation about placing both a musical and a phonetic *gaʿya* on the same word (Yeivin 2003, §408).

three contexts: the *shewa* under the מ of the word-initial cluster: -ְְמ ַה) under certain conditions); a *shewa* under the first of a pair of identical consonants (always when preceded by a long vowel, and often when preceded by a short vowel); the *shewa* in certain .אְּכְַל ,יְּרַ ְד ,הְּלְַך ,ב ְרְַך/הִ תְ בּ ר ך :verbs the of forms 7 These three classes cover the great majority of occurrences of exceptional, vocalic *shewa*s. MS L17 determined the text range from which comparative data were gathered. That is, if a relevant form appeared in the extant text of L17, the equivalent data were also gathered from L and A. Where possible, I have also included additional data from Lm, Gott 27, and RNL EVR II B 60.

#### **3.0. DATA**

#### **3.1.** *Shewa* **Following** מ **of Word-initial** -ְְמ ַה

This class of exceptional vocalic *shewa*s concern the word-initial .הַ מ-ְְ structure 8 Usually, though not always, the initial ה is the definite article. Hence, what is said here also applies to -ְְמ ַב, -ְְמ ַכ, and -ְְמ ַל, where the definite article is discernible in the *pataḥ* beneath the prefixed preposition. These prefixed forms were included in the search.

The basic rule here can be stated thus: if the -ְַה is the second syllable before the stressed syllable, and the word is not suitable for minor *gaʿya*, then the *shewa* under the *mem* will normally be

7 The verb ש ר ג is not included in the following discussion, as no suitable examples occur in the text-range from which data were gathered.

8 'Word-initial' is not intended to preclude the possibility of the presence .וְְ of

vocal, apart from all instances of the word ְ ַח צ ַנ ְמ ַל, and a few other isolated exceptions.9

In gathering the data for this set, every instance of wordinitial -ְ מ ַה/-ְְמ ַה, with or without an inseparable preposition, was noted from the entire range of text contained in L17, regardless of word structure or number of syllables before the stressed syllable. All twenty-two examples, in all three of the manuscripts examined, show a *gaʿya* under the first letter. In twenty instances the combination -ְ מ ַה/-ְְמ ַה itself is present, and a further two instances concern the combination -ְ מ ַב/-ְְמ ַב, wherein the ה of the definite article has been elided in favour of the prefixed -ב. In twenty-one of the examples the -ְַה) or equivalent) does indeed constitute the second syllable before the stressed syllable. In before syllable third the constitutes הַ ַ מ-ְְ the ,)7.8 Kgs 2 (הַ ַ מְ צֹרּ עִִ ים the accented syllable. Nonetheless, A vocalises the מ with a *ḥaṭef pataḥ* in this instance, too. In twenty of the examples the word structure is not suitable for minor *gaʿya* (and hence the *gaʿya* present must be phonetic). In the remaining two cases—ים ִ ִקְ ְק ַל מ ַ ַה (Judg. 7.6) and ְ ים ִק ְק ַל מ ַ ַה) Judg. 7.7)—if a simple *shewa* were written beneath the *mem*, the forms would be suitable for not-fullyregular minor *gaʿya*, and thus the *gaʿya* could, theoretically, be either phonetic or musical. This is particularly the case in Judg. 7.7, where the primary accent on the word is disjunctive.

From RNL EVR II B 60 I was able to gather seven relevant examples. In each example the -ְַה constituted the second syllable from the accent. None of the forms was suitable for minor *gaʿya.*

9 For an exhaustive discussion, see Yeivin (1968, 24–30).

Various aspects of these data are worthy of comment, or require explanation:

10 In fact, there is an additional instance of the same phenomenon in v. 7. L17, however, is not extant at this point, so this instance has not been included.

fourth case where A does not mark a *ḥaṭef* vowel concerns .below considered be will which ,)7.6 .Judg (הַ ַ מְְלַ קְ ְקִ ִ ים

x Samuel ben Jacob is consistent across all three MSS, both in preferring the simple *gaʿya* over the *gaʿya* + *ḥaṭef* combination, and in his exceptional marking of יםְִקְְקְַל מ ַ ַה with a *ḥaṭef* in Judg. 7.6, 7 in both L and L17.

The two occurrences of יםְִקְְקְַל מ ַ ַה in Judg. 7.6, 7 are puzzling. They are the only two words in our sample where Samuel ben Jacob (consistently in both L and L17) vocalises the first מ with a *ḥaṭef pataḥ*. 11 Conversely, the occurrence in v. 6 is the fourth and final example in the whole data set where the vocaliser of A *fails* to point the מ with a *ḥaṭef*. 12

12 It can be stated with relative confidence that Samuel ben Jacob is not out-of-step with masoretic stipulation in pointing Judg. 7.6 with a *ḥaṭef*, despite A's simple *shewa*. Various masoretic sources either state or imply that in both instances of המלקקים the *shewa* under the מ is vocalic. *Diqduqe haṭ-Ṭeʿamim* §14 (ed. Dotan 1967, 131, 228–32), states that the *shewa* under the first מ in לקקים ְמ ַ ַה should be pronounced as *pataḥ*, but does not specify whether this pertains to both occurrences, or only to one of them. Since, however, the word does not appear in the list of eighteen exceptions forming the latter part of §14, Yeivin (1968, 28) is of the opinion that this implies that both occurrences of the word are referred to. Yeivin (1968, 27) also mentions the reading of CUL Or. 1080, 13, 32 .המלקקיםְבידםְוחברו specifies which ,

11 It is, of course, possible that these *ḥaṭef* vowels were later emendations not carried out by Samuel ben Jacob. In neither manuscript, however, is this obviously so.

Given that the pointing of these two words across both L and L17 is consistent, it seems plausible to see these as intentional choices, and to seek a rationale behind them. It is tempting to find such a rationale in the fact that these two words alone in the sample above have a structure suitable for minor *gaʿya*. That is to say, the form ים ִק ְק ַל ְמ ַ ַה is ambiguous. Does the *gaʿya* represent minor *gaʿya* (i.e., a musical *gaʿya*)—in which case the *shewa* under the מ is silent—or a phonetic *gaʿya*—in which case the *shewa* under the מ is vocal? Thus, had Samuel ben Jacob employed his standard practice at Judg. 7.7 (where the accent on the word is disjunctive), relying exclusively on the inclusion of a *gaʿya* on the ה to indicate the vocalic nature of the following *shewa*, this would have led to ambiguity. At least in the case in Judg. 7.7, then, it is tempting to think that Ben Jacob may have written the *ḥaṭef pataḥ* beneath the מ in order to disambiguate.13

13 The same argument can be made, scarcely, for the instance in Judg. 7.6, in that minor *gaʿya* can sometimes even occur on words with conjunctive accents. Yeivin (1993, 188–89) mentions that Gott 27 employs some *ḥaṭef* vowels under non-guttural letters, and gives the two instances of ים ִק ק ַל ְמ ַה in Judg. 7.6, 7 as examples. This evidence is extraordinary, given the data above. Contrary to his practice in L and L17, Ben Jacob apparently marks the *shewa* under the ק with a *ḥaṭef*, but fails to mark either a *gaʿya* beneath the ה or a *ḥaṭef* beneath the מ. It is difficult to interpret these data, however, without the context of his regular practice regarding phonetic *gaʿya* in Gott 27.

### **3.2. Doubled Consonants14**

3.2.1. Preceded by Long Vowel15 (sixteen instances), e.g., עֹלְ לות

3.2.2. Preceded by Short Vowel16 (thirty-one instances: seventeen cases of י ִנ ְנ ִה and fourteen others), e.g., ים ִ ִל ְל ַ ַקְ ְמ

14 For an up-to-date discussion of this issue, see Heijmans (2018, 98– 110).

15 That is, a vowel that shows inherent length, rather than a vowel that is read as long due to syllable structure or stress.