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Following Elisha Qimron's Paper, "The Biblical Lexicon in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls")*

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Following Elisha Qimron's Paper, SOME NOTES (FOLLOWING ELISHA QIMRON'S PAPER, "THE BIBLICAL LEXICON IN THE LIGHT OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS")* SHELOMO MORAG The Hebrew University In his significant paper, Elisha Qimron successfully elucidates fea- tures of form and aspects of meaning of a number of biblical words and expressions. The importance of this paper lies, however, also in providing additional support to the conceptual definition that should be, to my mind, applied to Qumran Hebrew. As evidenced in the major non-biblical scrolls-the Classical Dead Sea texts-and many fragmentary works, stylistically, lexically and mor- phologically, Qumran Hebrew is not an imitation of biblical Hebrew, "a biblicising jargon,"' but virtually a living and natural continuation of biblical Hebrew. For the writers of the Classical Qumran texts bib- lical Hebrew was not a remote entity, a vehicle of expression of a pe- riod of the past in the history of the nation, but the literary language of their time.2 Indeed, Qumran Hebrew (in the general sense of the term) was not "pure" biblical Hebrew. Having distinct features of its own, it is hard to define it by the terms commonly used to name the consecutive stages in the history of Hebrew. It was a blend of biblical Hebrew with certain traits that naturally were possessed also by Mishnaic Hebrew * DSD 2 (1995) 295-329. 1 It is to be regretted that Qimron has adopted this term (first suggested by C. Rabin, and later followed, verbally or conceptually, by other scholars) in the admirable edition of MMT, prepared by him and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4. V, Miqsat Ma�a�Ha-e Torah (DJD 10; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) 108. 2 The language of MMT stands absolutely apart from that of the Classical texts, being a unique specimen of spoken Hebrew. In any case, it is not Mishnaic. For a dis- cussion of the nature of MMT's Hebrew, and a raising of the question whether the Teacher of Righteousness authored this document, see my paper, "Language and Style in Miqsat Ma�a�Ha-Torah:e Did Moreh Hasedeq Write this Document?" Tarbiz 65 (1995/96; Hebrew). 153 and some prominent dialectal features of the period,3 which, however, did not mar the overall patterns of its texture. Functionally, this type of Hebrew had served the authors of the Classical Qumran texts exceptionally well. It also fitted them ideologically. Qumran writers had adopted the biblical lexicon and phraseology into their conceptual framework and interpreted the Scriptures in their own way. They pos- sessed a special tradition of biblical Hebrew, as regards both form and meaning, which contained many lexical and other additions to the corpus of what we call biblical Hebrew. But they definitely regarded biblical Hebrew as the only legitimate foundation of the appropriate lit- erary texture to be used. Qimron's paper furnishes additional evidence to this view of Qumran Hebrew. Here are a few observations regarding Qimron's paper: 1. Qimron, pp. 298-300: &b 'D "if anyone among you has been rendered unclean by a nocturnal emis- sion" (Deut. 23:11). It is evident that Qumran Hebrew had the form nipn (or in the expression n7pn "a nocturnal expression"; as Qimron shows, this reading is grammatically supported by other tra- ditions of Hebrew. The dagesh in the qof of in Deuteronomy may denote, as Qimron observes, the pronunciation of the shewa as mobile. But the most important proof for the form n7pD (without a dagesh) is given by the syntactic structure of the passage in the Temple rrrr 'D v'&1 (45:7) "if a nocturnal emission happens to a man," which Qimron compares with Deut. 23:11. Here n7pn is the subject of'" the mem of n7pn can be only the preformative of the miqtal pattern, not the preposition. The syn- tax of Deut. 23:11 is, however, remarkably different. Here we read: iT""" 71nl3 "impure because of a nocturnal emission." If we adhere to the massoretic vocalization, the mem must be regarded as a preposition (unless we assume, as mentioned above, that the dagesh denotes that the shewa is mobile.)4 Thus, in sum, Hebrew has the two euphomistic forms to denote the notion: (cf., e.g. in Deut. 23:11 and iT'1PQ in its Qumran variety. in this meaning is possibly attested, as Qimron notes, also in 1 Sam. 20:26.) 3 A presentation of the main dialectal features is given in my paper, "Qumran Hebrew: Some Typological Observations," VT 38 (1988) 148-64. 4 For the use of the preposition with complements of the root see Lev. 16:19; Ezek. 36:25. .
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