[Mesorah] malei de malei rule?

[Dov Bloom]

I doubt there is a accurate rule on this. There are many words that are 
"malei d'malei"

some samples with 2 "amot kria" including some examples with 2 of the same 
"em kria"

1) yoducha -- breshit 49:8 Massora Gedola  kulhon malei be'train vavin bar 
min had haser vav tinyana (all instances with 2 vavs except 1..)

2)tovot  with 2 vavs -- Massora Gedola Breshit 41:26 / dvarim 6:10  Tovot
dalet (4) chaser d'chaser u'bet(2) melaim de'melaim ve'shaara tvot ktiv 
(chaser d'malei)

4) lehodot -- (mesora sofit letters yud dalet) dalet malei belishana spelled 
with 2 vavs

3) vetovim -- melachim alef 2:32 MG bet malei ve'alepf haser - tovim is 
written with a vav and a yud

5) yod'im -- see minhat shai esther 4:11 messora sofit (letters yud dalet 
#53) dalet malei (spelled with a vav and a yud befor the mem)

This was from perusal of a couple of pages at random in the middle of the 
Messora Gedola on letters tet-yud.

I agree with the general impression thta the tendency of the tanach is to 
spell not completely malei, as you see in later hebrew such as Dead Sea 
Scrolls time where they use much more malei.

DB the younger

> I did hear a klal on this, and I think it was right here on Mesorah in a 
> thread about the word "tzitzis". But unfortunately I have forgotten who 
> said it. But the klal suggested then was something like this:
>
> This is not a thing about specific words, but rather it is the Chumash's 
> style to avoid using more than one "aym l'mikra" (= vav or yud as a vowel) 
> if at all possible, and that it is usually the first one.
>
> I found lots of exceptions to the above, but skimming the Chumash from the 
> beginning, I do get the feeling that the Author does prefer to avoid these 
> letters. There were lots of opportunities for words to have more than one 
> of these, but often there is only one, or none at all. Look at how these 
> are spelled:
> Then again, that's one omittable vav and/or one omittable yud. For 
> homework, does anyone want to look for a word which has two omittable 
> vavs, or two omittable yuds?
>
> Akiva Miller
>
> PS: Found it! "Toldos" in 2:4. So much for this supposed "klal"...
>