DOCSLIB.ORG

Vocative Lamedh in the Psalter by Mitchell

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Vocative Lamedh in the Psalter by Mitchell VOCATIVE LAMEDH IN THE PSALTER BY MITCHELL DAHOOD Rome The various morphemes orthographically represented by the simple letter I in Ugaritic conspire to multiply the problems of the textual critic and the exegete of the Old Testament. Before the Ras Shamra texts emerged from the earth, the Bible translator could fairly assume that every le was a preposition denoting "to" or "for" and go on his way rejoicing. But a perusal of numbers 1337-1340 in the Glossary of C. H. GORDON'S Ugaritic Textbook (Analecta Orienta- lia 38: Roma 1965) reveals that consonantal I might stand for the preposition "to, for, from", or for the negative "no" or "not", with both verbs or substantives. It might also represent the emphatic lamedh, "verily, surely", or the vocative particle "O!". J. AISTLEITNER, Wörterbuch der ugariti.rchen Sprache (Berlin 1963), p. 163, no. 1424, would also distinguish an optative particle, "es m6ge", though he admits that it might not be distinct from the emphatic or corroborative lamedb. Given the close linguistic affinities between biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic, in my opinion a Canaanite dialect of the second millenn- ium B.C., it follows that the Hebraist is now faced with basically the same problems confronting the Ugaritic specialist; when inter- preting the morpheme graphically represented by lamedh, both must weigh four or five possibilities. Of particularly frequent occurrence in the Ugaritic tablets is the vocative lamedh. In the myths it occurs frequently with divine names : lb'l, "0 Baal!", lil, "0 El !", lktr, "0 Kothar!", or with divine appellatives: lrbtajrt, "0 Lady Asherah! ", "0 Virgin Anath!", lrkb "rPt, "0 Mounter of the Clouds!". It methodologically follows that in the lyric poetry of the Psalter, where divine names and appel- latives are so frequent, the vocative lamedb should, on a priori con- siderations, be present. But while we have several formal studies and numerous footnotes on the emphatic lamedh in Ugaritic and the Bible'), 1) The most recent study on the subject being that of Jorge MEJÍA, "El lamed enfatico en nuevos tcxtos del Antiguo Testamento", in Estudios biblicos22 (1963), 179-190. 300 we do not have an explicit examination of the vocative lamedh, in the Old Testament. In fact, my lacunar bibliography lists but four en- tries : W. F. ALBRIGHT in HUCA 23 (1950-51), 35, identifies it in Ps. lxviii 34, I-r,5kFb, "0 Rider!", by coincidence found with the same word in UT, 51: V: 122, lrk,b 'rpt; Dewey M. BEEGLE in BASOR 123 (1951), 28, shows that the biblical name Remaliah, written rwmlyh in I QIsa, should be pointed rûmläyähû and explained "Be exalted, 0 Yahu!" W. L. MORAN in The Bible and the Ancient East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright (New York 1961), ed. by G. Ernest VURIGHT, p. 61, cites the two preceding articles in his study of the Hebrew language in its Northwest Semitic background, while in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 60 (1965), col. 6, G. R. DRIVER correctly identifies the vocative lamedh in Ezek. xxvii 3, but his example in Ezek. xxxiv 17 seems to be less felicitous. To establish that in a definite context the lamedh is vocative and nothing else is usually not possible, at least in the passages of the Psalter examined by me. In many cases we must be content with high probability or even lesser degrees of knowledge. There are, however, several verses in the Psalter where sense, grammar, and poetic parallelism convincingly point to the vocative nature of the morpheme in question. The clearest example seems to be Ps. xcii 2: j0b jehõdôt lybtvh ûlezammër l efim ekd `elyon "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to thy name, 0 Most High" (RSV). Il est bon de rendre grace cz lahvé et de psalmodier à ton nom, Tres-Haitt (Bible de la Pléiade). In these translations, which hew to the tradition established by the ancient versions, we have Yahweh being mentioned in the third person in the first colon and then directly addressed in the second person in the following colon. The following verse, "to declare your love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night", where the sufl'lxes of both members of the verse are second person, also suggests that there is something awry with the traditional under- standing of vs. 2. This incongruity, unnoticed by the commentators, is readily eliminated by parsing the lamedh preceding the Tetragramma- ton as vocative: "It is good to give thanks, 0 Yahweh, and to hymn your name, 0 Most High!" .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • L2/20-246 Teeth and Bellies: a Proposed Model for Encoding Book Pahlavi
    L2/20-246 Teeth and bellies: a proposed model for encoding Book Pahlavi Roozbeh Pournader (WhatsApp) September 7, 2020 Background In Everson 2002, a proposal was made to encode a unified Avestan and Pahlavi script in the Unicode Standard. The proposal went through several iterations, eventually leading to a separate encoding of Avestan as proposed by Everson and Pournader 2007a, in which Pahlavi was considered non-unifiable with Avestan due to its cursive joining property. The non-cursive Inscriptional Pahlavi (Everson and Pournader 2007b) and the cursive Psalter Pahlavi (Everson and Pournader 2011) were later encoded too. But Book Pahlavi, despite several attempts (see the Book Pahlavi Topical Document list at https://unicode.org/L2/ topical/bookpahlavi/), remains unencoded. Everson 2002 is peculiar among earlier proposals by proposing six Pahlavi archigraphemes, including an ear, an elbow, and a belly. I remember from conversations with Michael Everson that he intended these to be used for cases when a scribe was just copying some text without understanding the underlying letters, considering the complexity of the script and the loss of some of its nuances to later scribes. They could also be used when modern scholars wanted to represent a manuscript as written, without needing to over-analyze potentially controversial readings. Meyers 2014 takes such a graphical model to an extreme, trying to encode pieces of the writing system, most of which have some correspondence to letters, but with occasional partial letters (e.g. PARTIAL SHIN and FINAL SADHE-PARTIAL PE). Unfortunately, their proposal rejects joining properties for Book Pahlavi and insists that “[t]he joining behaviour of the final stems of the characters in Book Pahlavi is more similar to cursive variants of Latin than to Arabic”.
    [Show full text]
  • Common Spoken Tamil Made Easy
    COMMON SPOKEN TAMIL MADE EASY Third Edition by T. V. ADIKESAVALU Digital Version CHRISTIAN MEDICAL COLLEGE VELLORE Adi’s Book. COMMON SPOKEN TAMIL MADE EASY Third Edition by T. V. ADIKESAVALU Digital Version 2007 This book was prepared for the staff and students of Christian Medical College Vellore, for use in the Tamil Study Programme. No part may be reproduced without permission of the General Superintendent. 2 Adi’s Book. CONTENTS FOREWORD. 6 PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 7 THIRD EDITION: UPDATE. 8 I. NOTES FOR PRONUNCIATION & KEY FOR ABBREVIATIONS. 9 II. GRAMMAR LESSONS: Lesson No. Page. 1. Greetings and Forms of Address. 10 2. Pronouns, Interrogative and Demonstrative. 12 3. Pronouns, Personal. 15 4. The Verb ‘to be’, implied. 17 5. Cardinal Numbers 1 to 10, and Verbs - introduction. 19 6. Verbs - Positive Imperatives. 21 7. Verbs - Negative Imperatives, Weak & Strong Verbs, & Medials. 23 8. Nouns - forming the plural. 28 9. Nouns and Personal Pronouns - Accusative (Object) case. 30 10. Nouns and Personal Pronouns - Genitive (Possessive) Case. 34 11. Review, (Revision) No.I. 38 12. Verbs - Infinitives. 40 13. Nouns and Personal Pronouns, Dative Case, ‘to’ or ‘for’ & Verbs - Defective. 43 14. Verbs - defective (continued). 47 15. Cardinal Numbers 11 to 1000 & Time. 50 16. Verbs - Present tense, Positive. 54 17. Adjectives and Adverbs. 58 18. Post-Positions. 61 19. Nouns - Locative Case, 'at' or 'in'. 64 20. Post positions, (Continued). 67 21. Verbs - Future Tense, Positive, and Ordinal Numbers. 70 3 Adi’s Book. 22. Verbs - Present and Past, Negative, Page. and Potential Form to express 'may' 75 23.
    [Show full text]
  • Solving Cipher Secrets
    - 3 - 2-7 SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS Edited by M. E. Ohaver CONTAINLNG A CIPHER, WITH PRELIMINARY EXPLANATIONS, TAKEN FROM THE BIBLE—ALSO, A MEW CIPHER OF INTEREST TO " DETECTIVE STORY READERS " T is not so well known, perhaps, that a Hebrew language. Vowels were supplied number of ciphers are believed to exist by the reader, no doubt from memory. I in the Bible. The consonants were also written continu• One instance of these ciphers occurs in ously, without any spaces between words; Jeremiah, chapter xxv, verse xxvi, and in and the direction of writing was from right chapter li, verse xli, where the prophet, to left, instead of left to right, as in English. to conceal the meaning of his predictions In deciphering an example in the athbash from all but the initiated, is supposed to system, the vowels would thus be disregard• have written Sheshach instead of Babel— ed. Consonants would be substituted ac• Babylon—the intended word. cording to the cipher alphabet, and the The cipher used in this case, called ath- necessary vowels added to the resulting bash by Buxtorf from the first two inter• series. Slieshach—sheshak—for instance, changeable pairs, may be constnicted by stripped of its vowels, leaves the consonants writing the first eleven letters of the Hebrew sh-sh-k. Substituting b and / for sh and k, alphabet in regular order, respectively, respectively, gives b-b-l; by vocalizing above the last eleven in reverse order, form• which, transmutation into Babel is com• ing eleven pairs, either letter in any pair pleted. acting as substitute for the other letter.
    [Show full text]
  • Preliminary Proposal to Encode the Elymaic Script in Unicode
    L2/17-055 2017-02-01 Preliminary proposal to encode the Elymaic script in Unicode Anshuman Pandey [email protected] February 1, 2017 1 Introduction The Elymaic script was identified by Michael Everson in 2001 in “Roadmapping early Semitic scripts” (N2311) as a suitable candidate for encoding in Unicode. It was allocated to the Roadmap to the Supple- mentary Multilingual Plane (SMP) in the same year.1 Yet, to date, no additional information for the script has been submitted. Currently, it rests in scarlet on the Roadmap as ¿Elymaic? at the range U+10EE0..10EFF; the Spanish question marks indicating its status as a script “for which detailed proposals have not yet been written”, and for which “[t]here may be a link to an exploratory code table”. In the sixteen years that have passed since Elymaic was first allocated to the Roadmap, no additional information on the script has been submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee, not even ‘an exploratory code table”. This preliminary pro- posal aims to give some digital dignity to Elymaic and to build a foundation for a future encoding for the script. It provides a tentative character repertoire and code chart, a brief description of the script, and a few specimens illustrating usage of the script. Research is ongoing and a formal proposal is forthcoming. 2 Description Elymaic is a historical right-to-left script derived from Imperial Aramaic. Also known as ‘Elymaean’ in English scholarly literature, the name ‘Elymaic’ refers to Elymais, a state within the Parthian empire (247 – 224 ) that is situated in the present-day region of Khuzestan in Iran.
    [Show full text]
  • New Hebrew Text of Ben Sira Chapter 1 in Ms a (Ts 12.863)
    NEW HEBREW TEXT OF BEN SIRA CHAPTER 1 IN MS A (T-S 12.863) (1) Summary The article proposes a reading of some of the offset letters in Hebrew Ms A, that is, the letters that have transferred from the preceding and still missing first folio page of the manuscript. Among other things, the article proposes that the offset letters in Ms A I recto, lines 1-4 are the remnants of Ben Sira chapter 1, the Hebrew text of which is not otherwise known. Surpris- ingly, the Hebrew text matches closely the Syriac translation at the end of chapter 1 and not the Greek. The Syriac translation contains what are consid- ered to be secondary, later additions. It is this additional material that is reflected in the offset Hebrew letters of Ms A I recto, lines 1-4. 1. Introduction N the Hebrew Ben Sira manuscript commonly titled Ms A, one finds traces of reversed Hebrew letters, letters which are the mirror Iimage of how we expect them. These traces of letters are found above, beneath, and overlapping with the letters that are correctly ori- ented. The traces of reversed letters are the result of two separate phenomena: 1) ink bleeding through the paper from the opposite side of the same manuscript sheet and 2) ink being transferred from the opposite, facing page of the manuscript, what is called “offset” (i.e., ink is transferred from the verso of one page to the recto of the next page and vice versa). (2) Although both phenomena result in letter (1) I wish to thank my many colleagues who offered observations and sugges- tions.
    [Show full text]
  • Letter L in Hebrew
    Letter L In Hebrew afghaniOtes side enough? her philologist heraldically, she siping it unvirtuously. Pinnate Fraser story actionably. Accursed and riftless Thorpe dimerized: which Ariel is Links on our hebrew letters: from a lebanese pianist, words for commercial use a lamp or color in life and small large volumes in. The Letter Lamed Hebrew for Christians. Best Hebrew Images Learn a Hebrew Words Biblical Hebrew. This letter has not of letters that person had a numerical order used his name, a romanization or words and get their being closest to. Chai and happy number 1 JCC Milwaukee. You can obey any number we see more parallel results for gender number gematronic value. The tongue higher state of gematria, unstressed vowels by medieval kabbalists to align text studying hebrew alphabet learn hebrew verbal system of apple inc. It weigh more give a historical guide display the Gematria from another chapter I either read. You can be possible translations is one should be. Jewish Disabilities To young Mr Pope etc A reply when his. If day would affirm to create addtional practice writing pages, and though is free! An in hebrew letter פ peh is important to access was limited to browse. You get started when written and greek and understanding and will take our web pages are signs when reading that large volumes in use gematria? Haim sheli hebrew meaning. Teeth are used to thaw food stand for consumption. It in and letters together, letter aleph each other. And encourage nice rat facts: the direction A, J, and knowing letter is also exist number.
    [Show full text]
  • Foreign Languages for the Use of Printers and Translators
    u. Gmm^-mi'mr printing office k. K GIEGJij^^a^GlI, Public Pbinter FOREIGN LANG-UAGI SUPPLEMENT TO STYLE MANUAL JIICVISED EDITION FOREIGN LANGUAGES For the Use of Printers and Translators SUPPLEMENT TO STYLE MANUAL of the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED APRIL 1935 By GEORGE F. von OSTERMANN Foreign Reader A. E. GIEGENGACK Public Printer WASHINGTON, D. C. 1935 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. Price $1.00 (Buckram) PREFACE This manual relating to foreign languages is purposely condensed for ready reference and is intended merely as a guide, not a textbook. Only elementary rules and examples are given, and no effort is made to deal exhaustively with any one subject. Minor exceptions exist to some of the rules given, but a close adherence to the usage indicated will be sufficient for most foreign-language work. In the Romance languages, especially, there are other good forms and styles not shovm in the following pages. It is desired to acknowledge the assistance and cooperation of officials and members of the staff of the Library of Congress in the preparation of these pages and, in particular. Dr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress; Mr. Martin A. Roberts, Superintendent of the Reading Room; Mr. Charles Martel, Consultant in Cataloging, Classification, and Bibliography; Mr. Julian Leavitt, Chief of Catalog Division; Mr. James B. Childs, Chief of Document Division; Dr. Israel Schapiro, Chief of the Semitic Division; Mr. George B. Sanderlin; Mr. S. N. Cerick; Mr. Jens Nyholm; Mr. N. H. Randers-Pehrson; Mr. Oscar E.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Berkeley Proposals from the Script Encoding Initiative
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by eScholarship - University of California UC Berkeley Proposals from the Script Encoding Initiative Title Proposal for encoding the Inscriptional Parthian, Inscriptional Pahlavi, and Psalter Pahlavi scripts in the SMP of the UCS Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2hm6b38h Authors Everson, Michael Pournader, Roozbeh Publication Date 2007-08-24 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N3286R L2/07-207R 2007-08-24 Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set International Organization for Standardization Organisation Internationale de Normalisation Международная организация по стандартизации Doc Type: Working Group Document Title: Proposal for encoding the Inscriptional Parthian, Inscriptional Pahlavi, and Psalter Pahlavi scripts in the SMP of the UCS Source: UC Berkeley Script Encoding Initiative (Universal Scripts Project) Authors: Michael Everson and Roozbeh Pournader Status: Individual Contribution Action: For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC Date: 2007-08-24 1. Introduction. The three scripts proposed here were used to write a number of Iranian and Indo- European languages, chiefly Parthian, and Middle Persian. They are descended from the Imperial Aramaic script used in Persia during the Achaemenid period (549–330 BCE), the Seleucid period (330–210 BCE) and the early Parthian period (210 BCE–224 CE). By the second century CE the Inscriptional Parthian script had evolved, and was used as an official script (besides Inscriptional Pahlavi, used to write the Sasanians’ own language) during the first part of the Sassanian period (224–651 CE). The main sources of Parthian are the inscriptions from Nisa (near present Ashgabat, Turkmenistan) and from Hecatompolis, as well as texts in Manichaean script, and a number of Sasanian multilingual inscriptions.
    [Show full text]
  • 4386-A Foreword
    Draft Amendment (DAM) 2 ISO/IEC 10646:2012/Amd.2:2013 (E)/WG2 N4386-A Foreword ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical Com- mission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees estab- lished by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC tech- nical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee, ISO/IEC JTC1. International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2. The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as an International Standard requires approval by at least 75% of the national bodies casting a vote. Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of ISO/IEC 10646 may be the subject of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. This International Standard was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC1, Information tech- nology, Subcommittee SC 2, Coded Character sets. Amendment 2 to ISO/IEC 10646:2012 was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC1, Infor- mation technology, Subcommittee SC 2, Coded character sets.
    [Show full text]
  • Glossary Pronouncing Explanatory Glossary Format
    "Think not that I come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." Matthew 5:17 Jewish Heritage Revival One Heritage United by Messiah "And When he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice" John 10:4 Home Page: www.shalommaine.com Glossary Pronouncing Explanatory Glossary Format. Names of persons and places are printed in ordinary type, other terms in italics. All terms are Hebrew except where [A] indicates Aramaic, [Y] Yiddish, and [O] some other language. Usual English renderings are shown in parentheses, unless the usual ones are the same as the CJB ones or differ only by reason of apostrophes. The definition or explanation, if there is one, follows a dash. In the case of B’rit Hadashah names and terms, there is given at the end of each entry the book, chapter and verse of the B’rit Hadashah where the name or term first appears (see abbreviations below); a "+" means it appears in at least one subsequent verse; "f." or "ff." means it appears again only in the verse or verses immediately following. Tanakh names and terms are generally not explained, although translations are given where needed. Pronunciation. Vowels are pronounced as boldfaced in the following words: father, aisle, bed, need, neigh, whey, marine (accented on last syllable) or invest (not accented), obey, rule. As for consonants, "ch" is pronounced as in Johann Sebastian Bach, and so is "kh"; "g" is always hard (give); other consonants are more or less as in English.
    [Show full text]
  • Revised Proposal to Encode the Sogdian Script in Unicode
    L2/16-371R2 2017-01-25 Revised proposal to encode the Sogdian script in Unicode Anshuman Pandey [email protected] January 25, 2017 1 Introduction This is a proposal to encode the Sogdian script in Unicode. It supersedes the following document: • L2/16-158 “Proposal to encode Sogdian in Unicode” A proposal summary form is attached. In addition to substantial modifications, it addresses comments re- garding L2/15-158 and previous drafts of the present proposal that have been made in: • L2/16-037 “Recommendations to UTC #146 January 2016 on Script Proposals” • L2/16-216 “Recommendations to UTC #148 August 2016 on Script Proposals” • L2/17-037 “Recommendations to UTC #150 January 2017 on Script Proposals” A proposed Unicode encoding for the ‘Old Sogdian’ script has been presented in: • L2/16-312R “Proposal to encode the Old Sogdian script in Unicode” The present proposal has been reviewed by Nicholas Sims-Williams and Yutaka Yoshida, who are leading scholars of Sogdian studies. 2 Background The Sogdian script was used primarily for representing Sogdian (ISO 639: sog), an ancient Eastern Iranian language, but also for recording texts in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Uyghur. The script was used primarily for manuscripts written on paper (fig. 60–79), but also for inscriptions on coins (fig. 80), stone (fig. 81–82), pottery (fig. 83), and other media. The script is derived from ‘Old Sogdian’ (see L2/16-312R) and is related to the Syriac and Manichaean scripts (see fig. 1). It is the ancestor of the Uyghur script (see § 2.1) and, in turn, of the Mongolian writing system.
    [Show full text]
  • A Hebrew Grammar for Beginners
    A HEBREW GRAMMAR FOR BEGINNERS BY ROBERT DICK WILSON, D. D. PROFESSOR IN PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINTED BY W. DRUGTJLIN, LEIPZIG 1908 A. ORTHOGRAPHY. LESSON I. THE ALPHABET. FIRST: THE TABLE. Name of Sign. A, OETHOGEAPHY. SECONDLY: REMARKS. 1. In general, the letters are sounded as in English. But notice: (1) That Aleph has no sound. At the beginning of a syllable, it may be compared to h in hour, e. g. 28 = av\ «a = ba. (2) That He has the sound of the rough breathing at the beginning of a syllable, but cannot be heard at the end of a syllable, e. g. in = lio\ but, H2 = ha. (3) That most authorities treat Ayin, as if it had al- ways lost its sound, though in transliteration it is denoted c by the sign , e. g., )y_ 'ayin. (4) That Heth has a sound something like ch in loch, or in Rache. (5) That Teth has a hard t sound which it is im- possible for us to give in distinction from Tau. It is commonly marked in transliteration by a dot placed under it, e. g., BMfl = tit. (6) It is impossible for us to always distinguish Sadhe, Samekh and Sin. In transliteration, we arbitrarily print Sadhe as s, Samekh as s, and Sin as s. (7) The student will pronounce Qoph like Kaph. It may be denoted by q, or by a k with a dot under it. 2. A dot placed in anyone of the six letters Beth. Gimel, Daleth, Pe, Kaph, and Tau," takes away its aspira- tion, i.
    [Show full text]