<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">I received the following response from one of my colleagues with an extensive Yeshiva background and one who is quite erudite.<div><br></div><div>He wrote:</div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote"><font>One might possibly call the case of the name Agur Bin-Yakeh (Prov. 30:1) some kind of fluke or "error," but this can hardly be the case with Bin-Nun, which occurs 29 times in Tanakh as such and never as </font></div><div class="gmail_quote">Ben-Nun. The Rambam was on to something as far as the two words being read as one, but like you say, his explanation is fanciful. We know that <i>bein</i> (son) changes its vowel to <i>ben</i>- in the <i>nismach </i>form </div><div class="gmail_quote">(son of), and indeed in all of these <i>nismach</i> cases one might say that "the two words are being read as one." So the question is why a different vowel change in the case of -Nun, and I think the answer is purely phonological. For some reason speakers of Ancient Hebrew found it more comfortable to pronounce Bin-Nun than Ben-Nun. You won't find in Tanakh any case of Ben followed by the sound <i>nu-</i> regardless of </div><div class="gmail_quote">what letter comes after the <i>nu-.</i> Furthermore, I was only able to find a single instance of a word in which a Segol-Bet is followed by either a Kubutz-Nun or Shuruk-Nun -- the word <i>y'subennu </i>in Jer. 52:21<i>.</i> </div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">If we explore this phenomenon further we see that the change from Ben-to Bin- is not as unique as it it seems, since the very same thing happened to the name Bin-yamin, which obviously derives from Ben-yamin. (cf. Gen 35:18 -- "she named him Ben-Oni; but his father called him Bin-Yamin"). Comparing this case to Bin-Nun, we see that the the operative phonological factor must be the nasal sound "m" </div><div class="gmail_quote">and/or "n". And similar to the rarity of the sound combination "<i>bennu,</i>" I could only find 6 names in Tanakh in the form Ben-Ya... (whether spelled with a Kamatz or Patach), and none of these has a Mem </div><div class="gmail_quote">or a Nun following the Ben-. (A 7th case might be the famous "Mordechai Ben-Yair," but the Megillah spells it without a Makaf, so it is actually "the son of Yair" rather than "Ben-Yair.")</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">We similarly find the word <i>ben</i>- changing <i>bin</i>- in the case of a "reverse-<i>nismach</i>" to the nasal word "<i>im</i>" in Deut. 25:2 -- <i>vehaya im-bin hakot harasha</i>. In this case, if the Makaf had (more logically, semantically speaking) been attached to the word <i>hakot</i>, it would have been <i> </i><i>vehaya </i><i>im </i><i>ben-hakot </i><i>harasha</i> instead of <i>bin hakot</i>. </div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Finally, there is Jonah 4:10, "You cared about the kikayon plant, ...which appeared overnight and perished overnight." The very beautiful Hebrew is ...<i>she-bin-laylah hayah u-vin-laylah avad</i>. What we have </div><div class="gmail_quote">here is a poetic vowel change that can appreciated two ways. It broadens "in the night" (<i>ba-laylah</i>) into "born in the night" (<i>ben-laylah</i>) while it simultaneously turns "son of the night" (<i>ben-laylah</i>) into the </div><div class="gmail_quote">more metaphorical "of the night" (<i>bin-laylah</i>). </div></div></body></html>