[Avodah] Parshas Behar (Bahar?)

[Zvi Lampel]

Mon, 7 May 2007 "Mike Miller" avodah at mikeage.net wrote: 

On 5/7/07, Zvi Lampel <hlampel at thejnet.com> wrote:
> >> Does anyone know the name of this week's Sedra is not changed from
> >> Behar to Bahar, for the same reasons that Bemidbar becomes Bamidbar?<<
>
>> Hypothesis: The names of the parshios Be'har, Sh'mos and B'midbar were
> always (and still are) pronounced in their possesive form. The spelling
> "Bamidbar" with an "a" is a recent American or English rendition, the origin
> of which should be researched. (Any texts available by which to check this
> ?)<<

>Interesting. I was always under the impression that Bamidbar was
actually correct (with a patach), as b'midbar sinai is grammatically
correct, but just b'midbar is missing a direct object (is that the
right grammatical term?), and thus it's changed to the definitive
bamidbar.<

Checked it out in the Concordancia, and any and every time (about 25 times, to be pedantic) "B_Midbar" is modified by the name of a desert, it's B'Midbar, not BA-Midbar. The only time it's "BA-midar" (when the word is not standing alone) is in the passage "BaMidbar HaGadol HaZeh." 

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