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<p class="MsoPlainText">I am having some “production difficulties,” since my materials are in various places. So I am sending a very short continuation this time; the next I hope will be meatier.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">The notes of the Masorah are written in Aramaic, usually abbreviated, between the columns of the text. A small circle over the word signifies what the note refers to.<span dir="RTL"></span><span lang="HE" dir="RTL" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><span dir="RTL"></span>
</span>A couple of examples:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText" dir="RTL" style="text-align:right;direction:rtl;unicode-bidi:embed">
<span dir="LTR"> </span><span lang="HE" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">עֵדְוֹתָיו ה' מפקין וי'ו
</span><span dir="LTR"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText" dir="RTL" style="text-align:right;direction:rtl;unicode-bidi:embed">
<span lang="HE" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">שׁלְ<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">That means that there are 5 occurrences in the T’NaKh of the word with the vav after the dalet pronounced (just like “<span lang="HE" dir="RTL" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"David","sans-serif"">מפיק ה'א</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>
means that the he’ is pronounced).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText" dir="RTL" style="text-align:right;direction:rtl;unicode-bidi:embed">
<span lang="HE" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">עָם י'ו' וכל זקפ' ואתנ' וסופ' פסוק' דכות</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"><span dir="LTR"></span>'<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">That means that there are 15 occurrences in the T’NaKh of the word with a qomatz, but every case where the word has the trop zaqfa, etnachta, or sofa dipsuqa it also has the qamatz (this only refers to the word<span lang="HE" dir="RTL" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"David","sans-serif"">עם
</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> when it is by itself and not if it has a prefix).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText" dir="RTL" style="text-align:right;direction:rtl;unicode-bidi:embed">
<span lang="HE" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">ראשי האבות ב' וכל כתיב' דכות' ב' מ' ז</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"><span dir="LTR"></span>'<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">That means that there are only 2 occurrences in the T’NaKh of this pair of words with the he’ in front of the second word, but every case in the K’tuvim (Aramaic K’tivin) where the pair occurs has the he’ except for 7 cases (
<span lang="HE" dir="RTL" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"David","sans-serif"">
בר מן ז'</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText" dir="RTL" style="text-align:right;direction:rtl;unicode-bidi:embed">
<span dir="LTR"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Outside of the Masorah in the Aleppo Codex (and the related codices), there are a couple of other sources which are necessary for this discussion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">One is a book called Kitaab alKhilaf (sefer haHillufim in Hebrew), which is primarily a list of the differences between Ben Asher and Ben Naftali. Ben Naftali was a Masorete who lived at the same time as ben Asher, and the differences,
as is to be expected, are in real kleinigkeiten: whether a syllable has a ge‘ayah, what the m’sharet trop is on a word. There are only 2 or three systematic differences: Ben Asher punctuates the name to be read
<span lang="HE" dir="RTL" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">
יִשָּׂשכָר</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>, whereas Ben Naftali puncuates is
<span lang="HE" dir="RTL" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">
יִשְׁשָּׂכָר</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> (and Moshe Mocheh, another Masorete, read it
<span lang="HE" dir="RTL" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">
יִשְׂשָּׂכָר</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>. When a prefix such as bet or lamed is added to words beginning in /yi/, Ben Asher puts in a sh'wa (e.g. l'yisra'el), whereas Ben Naftali punctuates it a lisra'el, with the yod elided. Since
the sh'wa in that position is pronounced as a hiriq according to Ben Asher, the difference in pronunciation is tiny indeed. I have attached as a PDF file a page from one of the versions of Kitaab alKhilaf, and you can see, that in the first example, the difference
is the trop on the word ‘im, and in the second, the difference is whether there is a ge‘ya on the word pen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Another composition of the Masoretes is called Sefer Okhla v'Okhla. It list pairs or groups of words that are very similar, but vary in small matters. The first entry, whence the name by which the book is referred to, reads:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="HE" dir="RTL" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">אלפא ביתא מן חד וחד חד א' וחד וא' ולית דכוותנון</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> meaning "a list of all the word in the T'NaKh that
appear only twice, once with a vav at the beginning and once without, in alphabetical order."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Another (#44) is titled<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="HE" dir="RTL" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">כ' זוגין מן חד וחד חד מלרע וחד מלעיל וא' בריש תיבתא וליתא</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="HE" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><span dir="LTR"></span>
</span>meaning "a list of 20 pairs of words beginning with aleph that appear only twice, one of which is "mill'ra‘ [here meaning punctuated with a sh'wa or patah] and the other mill‘eil [meaning a “heavy” syllable, punctuated with a patah and dagesh or a qametz
in place of a dagesh] [For example, the first pair is Isaiah 51:2 vs/Gen. 27:33] (One can imagine such lists being of great interest to the Masoretes, but not so interesting to the rest of us mortals.). The entire book is available online at
<a href="http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101065583708;view=1up;seq=11">
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101065583708;view=1up;seq=11</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Goudy Old Style","serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style","serif";color:black">Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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