Semitic languages & shared religious terminology

Shalom/Salaam/Shlam

I am making this thread as a place to list shared religious terminology between the 3 Semitic languages of the Abrahamic religions. Although the NT is in Greek, it's well known that the early Christians probably spoke Aramaic alongside Hebrew. I've always been interested in the fact that these 3 religions shared a lot linguistically.

If anyone knows of any other common words, then please feel free to add them. And if I've messed up any spelling or otherwise then please feel free to correct.

I will begin with a few I am aware of:



Peace / Greeting of Believers:

Arabic: سَلام (salaam)
Hebrew: שָׁלוֹם (shalom)
Syriac: ܫܠܳܡ (shlam)

God:

Arabic: الله (allah)
Hebrew: אֱלוֹהַּ (eloah)
Syriac: ܐܰܠܳܗ (alah)

Creator:

Arabic: بَارِئ (baari')
Hebrew: בֹּורֵא (bowra)
Syriac: ܒ݁ܳܪܽܘܝܳܐ (baruwya)

Mercy / Compassion:

Arabic: رَحْمَة (rahmah)
Hebrew: רֻחָמָה (rakhamah)
Syriac: ܪܰܚܡܶܐ (rahma)

Blessing:

Arabic: بَرَكَة (barakah)
Hebrew: בְּרָכָה (berakah)
Syriac: ܒܘܪܟܬܐ (bowrakta)

Faith:

Arabic: إيمَان (emaan)
Hebrew: אֱמוּנָה (emunah)
Syriac: ܗܝܡܢܘܬܐ (hymanuwta)

Holy / Sacred:

Arabic: قُدْسِي (qudsi)
Hebrew: קָדוֹשׁ (qadosh)
Syriac: ܩܰܕ݁ܺܝܫ (qadiysh)

Angel:

Arabic: مَلاك (malaak)
Hebrew: מַלְאָךְ (malaak)
Syriac: ܡܰܠܰܐܟ݂ܳܐ (malaaka)

Prophet:

Arabic: نَبِي (nabiy)
Hebrew: נָבִיא (nabiy)
Syriac: ܢܒ݂ܺܝܳܐ (nabiya)

Satan/Devil:

Arabic: شَيطَان (shaytan)
Hebrew: שָׂטָן (satan)
Syriac: ܣܳܛܳܢܳܐ (satana)

Worshipper / Servant:

Arabic: عَبْد (`abd)
Hebrew: עֶבֶד (`ebed)
Syriac: ܥܰܒ݂ܕ݁ܳܐ (`abda)

Righteous / Truthful:

Arabic: صَدِيق (sadiq)
Hebrew: צַדִּיק (tsadiyq)
Syriac: ܙܕܝܩܐ (zadiyq)
Biblical Aramaic: צִדְקָה (tsidqah)

Pure / Clean / Righteous:

Arabic: زَكِيَ (zakiya)
Hebrew: זָךְ (zak)
Syriac: ܙܟܝܐ (zakaya)

Scripture / Book:

Arabic: كِتَاب (kitaab)
Hebrew: כְּתָב (katab)
Syriac: ܟܬܒܐ (ktaba)

Fasting:

Arabic: صَوْم (sowm)
Hebrew: צוֹם (tsom)
Syriac: ܨܝܡܐ (sayama)

Prayer:

Arabic: صَلَاة (salat)
Syriac: ܨܠܘܬܐ (sluwta)
Biblical Aramaic: צְלָה (tsela)

Garden (of Eden):

Arabic: جَنَّة عَدْن (jannat `adn)
Hebrew: גַן עֵדֶן (gan `eden)
Syriac: ܓܢܬܐ (ganta)

House (of worship):

Arabic: بَيت (bayt)
Hebrew: בַּיִת (bayit)
Syriac: ܒܝܬܐ (beyt)

Temple / Palace:

Arabic: هَيكَل (haykal)
Hebrew: הֵיכָל (heykal)
Syriac: ܗܝܟܠܐ (haykla)

Altar:

Arabic: مَذْبَح (madhbah)
Hebrew: מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeakh)
Syriac: ܡܕܒܚܐ (madbaha)

Good News / Glad Tidings / Gospel:

Arabic: بُشْرَة (bushrah)
Hebrew: בְּשׂרָה (busrah)

Pilgrimage / Festival / Feast:

Arabic: حَجّ (hajj)
Hebrew: חָג (khag)

Mercy is actually Rachamim (sorry I don't have a Hebrew font for internet. It's spelled resh-chet-mem-yod-mem sofit). Rechem, which is how you've spelled it above, actually means "womb."

Also, the term "Eloah" is actually in a poetic pausal construct form. The root cognate term you're looking for is either "El"/"el" (spelled alef-lamed), meaning (depending on context) either God or "a god," or else it is "Elohim," a name of God which is in the plural form (literally, it originally meant, "the gods," and was a holdover from pre-Monotheistic Israelitish religion. But Rabbinic, and probably late Biblical, Jews took the plurality of the construction to be indicative of the One God's many aspects). If I had to guess (I don't really speak Arabic, though I can pick out a few words if it's transliterated into Hebrew characters, as some of the Arab Jews used to do), the true root cognate to "Allah" is "El," given that the ancient pre-Judaic Hebrew feminine of "el" was "elah," and the Aramaic cognate of the poetic pausal construct "Eloah" is "Elahah." The syntactical similarities in the elaboration of the root morpheme seems unmistakable.

The word for faith is "emunah," (alef-mem-vav-nun-heh). There is no form "emun," as you have set forth, although the interjection "amen" (which literally means something along the lines of "so we believe") comes from the same root, and has a very similar form. A believer would be "ma'amin" (mem-alef-mem-yod-nun).

The term "satan," in Judaism, traditionally has no context of "devil" or "demon," nor is it the name of an evil entity, as Christianity makes it. Traditionally, "satan" was the title of the office given to an angel (traditionally it was believed many angels had held the office) whose purview it was to assist God in testing the faithful, or in confronting the souls of dead people when they came to the Heavenly Court for judgment upon their deeds in life. The word "satan" comes from a root meaning "adversary," (in the judicial sense), so a good contextual translation would actually be "anti-advocate," or "prosecutor." The word as used today in modern Hebrew reflects its coloration by Christian influence, though today's Jews still do not believe in a devil, or Hell.

Finally, the word "besorah" (bet-sin-resh-heh, or bet-sin-vav-resh-heh), which is almost never encountered in the singular, but rather, almost exclusively in the plural, "besorot" (bet-sin-vav-resh-vav-tav) has no context of positiveness, or negativeness. It simply means "messages" or "tidings."

I don't know enough Arabic to know of other cognate words, but I am sure there must be many. After all, Arabic is closer to Aramaic than to Hebrew, and I picked up Aramaic, knowing only Hebrew previously, in no time at all-- it's that close. I certainly have noted that the greetings employed between Muslims (as-Salaamu Alaikum/wa-Alaikum as-Salaam) and between Jews (Shalom Aleychem/Aleychem Shalom) seems to be so cognate as to be a perfect parallelism....

Todah Levite,

I will endeavour to re-examine those that I've mixed up in Hebrew, but I might just also point out that although some forms don't get used in modern Hebrew they do exist in Biblical Hebrew, especially those words which are used only in plural, the single form having fallen completely out of use, although the presence of the plural form lets us know the singular did once exist. And when comparing cognates, we're not so much worried with number or case or tense etc. More just the root itself.

Mercy is actually Rachamim (sorry I don't have a Hebrew font for internet. It's spelled resh-chet-mem-yod-mem sofit). Rechem, which is how you've spelled it above, actually means "womb."

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The same double meaning is derived in Arabic for this root as well (of mercy and womb). However, the singular form does exist in the Tanakh, and I have now corrected it to reflect that, instead of the word for womb.

Also, the term "Eloah" is actually in a poetic pausal construct form.

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Again although the plural form is the only one in common use, the singular does exist, and is what would more rightly be cognate with the Arabic and Aramaic forms (as they are both in the singular).

The singular Eloah is used in the Tanakh to refer to God, although Elohiym is more frequent.

The word for faith is "emunah," (alef-mem-vav-nun-heh).

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Updated, Todah again.

The term "satan," in Judaism, traditionally has no context of "devil" or "demon," nor is it the name of an evil entity, as Christianity makes it.

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Well that's getting more into the religious interpretation and theology now. The term exists, and has a pretty similar religious meaning amongst all 3, even if it's more elaborate in some than others.

Finally, the word "besorah" (bet-sin-resh-heh, or bet-sin-vav-resh-heh), which is almost never encountered in the singular, but rather, almost exclusively in the plural, "besorot" (bet-sin-vav-resh-vav-tav) has no context of positiveness, or negativeness. It simply means "messages" or "tidings."

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Yes, as in most other Semitic languages, but in a religious context, I think it generally means good news, or conveying a sense of joy and elation. In the Qur'an it is also used for bad news, eg. give bushrah to the disbelievers about the punishment that awaits them.

When it is used in the Tanakh to mean good news, no modifier for "good" needs to be used, indicating the positive aspect of it is inherent.

I don't know enough Arabic to know of other cognate words, but I am sure there must be many.

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Yes thousands, but this thread is purely limited to the religious-oriented terminology

I certainly have noted that the greetings employed between Muslims (as-Salaamu Alaikum/wa-Alaikum as-Salaam) and between Jews (Shalom Aleychem/Aleychem Shalom) seems to be so cognate as to be a perfect parallelism....

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Yes they are very close, in spelling almost the same. However there's a few shifts that the Canaanite languages underwent, which are quite obvious in this simple phrase. The long 'aa' vowel shifted to 'o' in the Canaanite languages, and sin and shin merged, although in Hebrew they remained distinct, but are reversed, so we have shin instead of sin. And the kaph has developed more of a kh/ch sound in modern Hebrew. Apart from those small shifts, almost exactly the same.

Nice thread, Abu Rashid. (And hold your ground on Eloah! )

Interesting...
(you dropped the ى in إيمان

barak'allah feeki, fixed!

Nice thread, Abu Rashid. (And hold your ground on Eloah! )

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Thanks for the heads up, I intend to

After all, Arabic is closer to Aramaic than to Hebrew, and I picked up Aramaic, knowing only Hebrew previously, in no time at all-- it's that close.

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Not necessarily. Arabic is close to all of the Semitic languages, since it retains much of the original proto-Semitic features. For all the similarities with Aramaic, I could find you just as many with Hebrew.

Abu Rashid said:

The same double meaning is derived in Arabic for this root as well (of mercy and womb). However, the singular form does exist in the Tanakh, and I have now corrected it to reflect that, instead of the word for womb.

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AR- a very learned thread!

The singular form of Rachamim, to my knowledge, only appears in the singular in the Tanakh when it is in verb form, l'rachem (e.g., it says of one person to another, v'rachem alav smb. "And he had mercy on so-and-so."), or in the adjectival form, rachum "merciful," or perhaps when in construct ("smichut"). But on its own, the form you've chosen (as spelled, actually pronounced "ruchamah") is actually a hapax legomenon, found only in the Book of Hosea. There really are some words, even in Biblical Hebrew, that are only used in the plural. A singular may be possible to construct for such words, but the word in question is simply never construed that way, even in ancient text.

The singular Eloah is used in the Tanakh to refer to God, although Elohiym is more frequent.

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I also have to remain firm on this. The word Eloah certainly is used in Tanakh, and certainly in reference to God. I only maintain that it is in a construct form. The mapik in the heh (the little dot in the center of the heh that tells you to aspirate the vocalization) is the sign of a possessive construct. "Eloah" is a poetic form meaning "God of..." or "God that..." or "God which..." as in for example Deut. 32:15, the poem Ha'azinu, recited by Moshe Rabbenu, where it appears in the phrase "Eloah asahu" "God, who made him," or Ps. 18:32 "ein Eloah miba'aladi" "there is no God that is in my place" (i.e., "there is no God but me") There are, it is true, a couple of places (someplace in Kings, and I think maybe Habakkuk) where it shows up as a ktiv (that is, it is written so in the text), but the Masoretes instruct us to vocalize it "Elohei" in the kri (that is, the Masoretes presume that it is a scribal error, because the form makes no sense in that context, but they had no extant alternate manuscript tradition upon which to base a change in their manuscript's spelling).

Well that's getting more into the religious interpretation and theology now. The term exists, and has a pretty similar religious meaning amongst all 3, even if it's more elaborate in some than others.

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Actually, I'm not talking about theology. I'm talking about the original meaning of the word. "Devil" or "Satan" in the modern/Christian senses represent concepts that Biblical Judaism simply does not appear to have had. The word "satan" indicates an adversary, an opponent. In the Tanakh, it is not even exclusively used of a supernatural entity: the word is sometimes applied to mortal adversaries of Israel (a couple of times in Numbers, once or twice in Psalms, and someplace else...maybe one of the minor prophets?).

Yes, as in most other Semitic languages, but in a religious context, I think it generally means good news, or conveying a sense of joy and elation. In the Qur'an it is also used for bad news, eg. give bushrah to the disbelievers about the punishment that awaits them. When it is used in the Tanakh to mean good news, no modifier for "good" needs to be used, indicating the positive aspect of it is inherent.

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I can only find one instance in the Tanakh (2 Kings 7:9) where the word besorot has no modifying adjective, and clearly means "good news." Everywhere else that I have found using lexica and concordances there is some modifying adjective. In the case of "good news," it is always the construction besorot tovot. While in the strictest sense of early Biblical Hebrew grammar, you may be right that no modifier is necessary, it seems clear that in the common usage of Biblical Hebrew, a modifier was necessary, and so it was used.

Also, the Biblical Aramaic word "tzlah" meaning "prayer" (actually, literally, "prostration") is spelled tzadi-lamed-alef, and is exceptionally rare (it only occurs twice that I can find, once in Daniel and once in Ezra), and only occurs in the imperfect verb form metzalei (mem-tzadi-lamed-alef) or imperfect plural verb metzalin (mem-tzadi-lamed-yod-nun sofit). It sometimes occurs in Rabbinic Aramaic in the form tzelota (tzadi-lamed-tav-alef or tzadi-lamed-vav-tav-alef), and appears in some forms of the Kaddish prayer which is the traditional doxology in Jewish services (...titkabal tzelot'hon v'avut'hon d'chol bet Yisrael kodam avuhon di'vi'shemaya... "...may the prayers and petitions of all the House of Israel be taken up before our Father who is in Heaven..."). The Rabbinic Aramaic speakers mostly adopted the Hebrew root peh-lamed-lamed (palal, usually in the reflexive verb lehitpalel, to pray), or sometimes the euphemisim avid (ayin-bet-daled, cognate to the Hebrew avodah or la'avod, meaning "to give service").

Levite said:

There are, it is true, a couple of places (someplace in Kings, and I think maybe Habakkuk) where it shows up as a ktiv (that is, it is written so in the text), but the Masoretes instruct us to vocalize it "Elohei" in the kri (that is, the Masoretes presume that it is a scribal error, because the form makes no sense in that context, but they had no extant alternate manuscript tradition upon which to base a change in their manuscript's spelling).

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Why do you consider the Masorete position authoritative?

Jayhawker Soule said:

Why do you consider the Masorete position authoritive?

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Are you joking?

Levite,

AR- a very learned thread!

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Thanks, let us hope it can be a topic of mutual recognition that we share a similar basis and origin to our beliefs and religions.

The singular form of Rachamim, to my knowledge, only appears in the singular in the Tanakh when it is in verb form, l'rachem (e.g., it says of one person to another, v'rachem alav smb. "And he had mercy on so-and-so."), or in the adjectival form, rachum "merciful," or perhaps when in construct ("smichut").

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In Habaquq 3:2 it seems to appear in singular form (if I'm not mistaken).

יְהוָה שָׁמַעְתִּי שִׁמְעֲךָ יָרֵאתִי יְהוָה פָּֽעָלְךָ בְּקֶרֶב שָׁנִים חַיֵּיהוּ בְּקֶרֶב שָׁנִים תֹּודִיעַ בְּרֹגֶז רַחֵם תִּזְכֹּֽור

Perhaps I should've just listed the roots rather than specific examples of words, so as to avoid the issues related to archaic forms and patterns.

There really are some words, even in Biblical Hebrew, that are only used in the plural.

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True there is, but I think this is merely a remnant of the fact Hebrew fell into disuse as a commonly spoken language. The dual number was lost except in a few words even prior to the Biblical period, and the singulars of many words which weren't commonly used were forgotten or were unattested and so were considered not to be usable.

I also have to remain firm on this. The word Eloah certainly is used in Tanakh, and certainly in reference to God. I only maintain that it is in a construct form.

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Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these cases of it being used not in construct and stand alone? As there is no mappiq.

Debarim 32:15
וַיִּשְׁמַן יְשֻׁרוּן וַיִּבְעָט שָׁמַנְתָּ עָבִיתָ כָּשִׂיתָ וַיִּטֹּשׁ אֱלֹוהַ עָשָׂהוּ וַיְנַבֵּל צוּר יְשֻׁעָתֹֽו׃

Debarim 32:17
יִזְבְּחוּ לַשֵּׁדִים לֹא אֱלֹהַ אֱלֹהִים לֹא יְדָעוּם חֲדָשִׁים מִקָּרֹב בָּאוּ לֹא שְׂעָרוּם אֲבֹתֵיכֶֽם׃

Habaquq 3:3
אֱלֹוהַ מִתֵּימָן יָבֹוא וְקָדֹושׁ מֵֽהַר־פָּארָן סֶלָה כִּסָּה שָׁמַיִם הֹודֹו וּתְהִלָּתֹו מָלְאָה הָאָֽרֶץ׃

Also in most of the cases where it does have mappiq, it doesn't seem to me to be in construct state, unless my understanding of construct is not complete (as I mostly know about it from Arabic grammar, where it could be different I guess). As far as I was aware the mappiq is merely an indicator that the letter must be read as a consonant not as a vowel. But I'm certainly not well versed in the intricacies of Hebrew grammar nor it's orthography.

Actually, I'm not talking about theology. I'm talking about the original meaning of the word.

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Yes the root does merely have the meaning of adversary and has that meaning in Syriac as well. And Arabic also has the noun ساطن (saatin) meaning someone malicious.

But I think it has become well understood that in Christian and Islamic theology at least the name refers to a specific being who rebelled against God and became the chief of the wrong-doers. Judaism may not share this belief, but for the purpose of the thread, the word is still relevant I think.

I understand that Jews believe Christians and Muslims just misunderstood this concept and adopted it wholesale into their religion without understanding what it really meant.

I can only find one instance in the Tanakh (2 Kings 7:9) where the word besorot has no modifying adjective, and clearly means "good news."

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Yes that is the example I was thinking of. One instance is enough to establish it

Also keep in mind the verbal form is used several times with the implied meaning of good tidings, without specifying it explicitly with towb. So I think it's quite well established that like in Arabic and Syriac it can carry this meaning in and of itself. Most Semitic languages are fairly rich in their semantic ranges and variance and can often convey general and specific meanings with the same word, just based on context.

Also, the Biblical Aramaic word "tzlah" meaning "prayer" (actually, literally, "prostration") is spelled tzadi-lamed-alef, and is exceptionally rare

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Yeh I was only able to find the verbal form. Thanks, will update it, if I can get the initial post re-opened for editing (the time limit seems to have elapsed).

tzedakah / sadaqah

tzedakah / sadaqah

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Thanks Jayhawk.

Charity / Alms:

Arabic: صَدَقَة (sadaqah)
Hebrew: צדקה (tzedakah)
Syriac: ܙܕܩܬܐ (zedaqta)

To offer a sacrifice:

Arabic: ذَبَحَ (dhabaha)
Hebrew: זָבַח (zavakh)
Syriac: ܕܒܚ (dbah)

(note: the word for altar above is derived from this verb, as an altar is the location at which sacrifice takes place)

This might be a bit random but, do Semitic languages use declensions (if you know what that is)?

This might be a bit random but, do Semitic languages use declensions (if you know what that is)?

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Are you kidding? It's one of the defining features of Semitic languages. They all inflect for at least gender and number.

Arabic retains the most elaborate set of declensions, whilst most other Semitic languages have simplified some of their grammar over time to get rid of some declensions.

Arabic fully inflects verbs, nouns, adjectives & pronouns for gender (male/female) number (singular/dual/plural) and case (accusative/nominative/genitive). As many common words like the words for "still" or "become" are quasi-verbs in Arabic, they are also fully inflected.

Levite said:

Jayhawker Soule said:

Why do you consider the Masorete position authoritative?

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Are you joking?

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No. This thread is far more about philology than theology and the question is entirely serious.

Abu Rashid said:

Thanks, let us hope it can be a topic of mutual recognition that we share a similar basis and origin to our beliefs and religions.

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Well said, sir.

In Habaquq 3:2 it seems to appear in singular form (if I'm not mistaken).

יְהוָה שָׁמַעְתִּי שִׁמְעֲךָ יָרֵאתִי יְהוָה פָּֽעָלְךָ בְּקֶרֶב שָׁנִים חַיֵּיהוּ בְּקֶרֶב שָׁנִים תֹּודִיעַ בְּרֹגֶז רַחֵם תִּזְכֹּֽור

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So, this is still a verb. Granted, this whole verse is poetic, and contains several constructions that, if read using modern Hebrew grammar, would make no sense. Nonetheless, I would translate po'alacha b'kerev shanim chayehu, b'kerev shanim todiya, b'rogez rachem tizkor as "Your works have a lifespan of many years, you make them known over the course of years, yet you remember to be merciful instantly."

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these cases of it being used not in construct and stand alone? As there is no mappiq.

Debarim 32:15
וַיִּשְׁמַן יְשֻׁרוּן וַיִּבְעָט שָׁמַנְתָּ עָבִיתָ כָּשִׂיתָ וַיִּטֹּשׁ אֱלֹוהַ עָשָׂהוּ וַיְנַבֵּל צוּר יְשֻׁעָתֹֽו׃

Debarim 32:17
יִזְבְּחוּ לַשֵּׁדִים לֹא אֱלֹהַ אֱלֹהִים לֹא יְדָעוּם חֲדָשִׁים מִקָּרֹב בָּאוּ לֹא שְׂעָרוּם אֲבֹתֵיכֶֽם׃

Habaquq 3:3
אֱלֹוהַ מִתֵּימָן יָבֹוא וְקָדֹושׁ מֵֽהַר־פָּארָן סֶלָה כִּסָּה שָׁמַיִם הֹודֹו וּתְהִלָּתֹו מָלְאָה הָאָֽרֶץ׃

Also in most of the cases where it does have mappiq, it doesn't seem to me to be in construct state, unless my understanding of construct is not complete (as I mostly know about it from Arabic grammar, where it could be different I guess). As far as I was aware the mappiq is merely an indicator that the letter must be read as a consonant not as a vowel.

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May I respectfully ask what edition of Tanakh are you looking in? I have looked in three different editions, including a critical edition Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensis, and in all of them, the verses in question do have a mapik in the heh. Is it possible you may have examined a faulty edition, or perhaps one of the "modernized Hebrew" editions that are popular in Israel now, which paraphrase the text into modern constructions and phraseology? I believe the mapik is probably standard to the Masoretic text, since grammatically, it doesn't make sense in Biblical Hebrew without presuming the modified construct form. The mapik is not merely an indicator that the letter should be vocalized with aspiration, it serves in Biblical Hebrew (and in Rabbinic and Medieval Hebrew) as a syntactical indicator of direction or possession in a modified construct form. So, for example (having already construed Devarim 32:15), in Devarim 32:17, yizbechu l'shedim lo eloah should mean "Those who sacrifice to demons, He (God) is not their God."

Yes that is the example I was thinking of. One instance is enough to establish it.

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With all due respect, if a single usage was enough to specify a norm, we wouldn't refer to them as hapax legomena. I have to disagree with the idea that one usage is enough to establish a norm of meaning.

Also keep in mind the verbal form is used several times with the implied meaning of good tidings, without specifying it explicitly with towb. So I think it's quite well established that like in Arabic and Syriac it can carry this meaning in and of itself. Most Semitic languages are fairly rich in their semantic ranges and variance and can often convey general and specific meanings with the same word, just based on context.

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Again, I have only found the one usage that so implies. May I ask for the citations for some other such usages?

Jayhawker Soule said:

No. This thread is far more about philology than theology and the question is entirely serious.

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I don't know why acceptance of the Masoretic text implies a theological position. The only theological choice that they seem to have made, as far as I can tell, is to point the tetragrammaton with the vowelling for "Adonai," as a reminder not to attempt to pronounce the Name.

But in general, so much as I can tell from my comparison studies of the Rabbinic-era text fragments and the Aleppo Codex at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Masoretes appear to have reliably and excellently preserved the traditions of vocalization, and-- with some contraction of archaic ktav malei to a more standardized ktav chaser, and vice-versa-- the standardization of proper spellings, precisely as they were attempting to do. They were quite punctilious in preserving ktiv versus kri when there was doubt or alternate reading, and they seem also to have indicated phraseology or syntactical choices that they felt were at all in doubt. From a grammatical point of view, their scoring with temimei mikrah seems to consistently support comprehensible readings, and to avoid confusion in parsing complex sentences. Their text is remarkably free of dittographies and haplographies, as well as blatantly ungrammatical nikud or explicit misspelling-- certainly more so than some non-Masoretic kitvei yad that I have seen.

All of which has nothing to do with theology, and everything to do with philology and linguistics.

Levite said:

I don't know why acceptance of the Masoretic text implies a theological position. The only theological choice that they seem to have made, as far as I can tell, is to point the tetragrammaton with the vowelling for "Adonai," as a reminder not to attempt to pronounce the Name.

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Even were that true, it would not make the Masoretes authoritative on matters of philology. As for the rest, I found Emanuel Tov's


informative, including: The main point, however, is that the authority of the Masoretes rests predominantly in the commitment and skill with which they preserved the variants they chose to consider authoritative.

Jayhawker Soule said:

Even were that true, it would not make the Masoretes authoritative on matters of philology. As for the rest, I found Emanuel Tov informative, including:

Most of the texts -- ancient and modern -- which have been transmitted from one generation to the next have been corrupted in one way or another ... in contradistinction to mistakes, which are not controllable, the insertion of corrections and changes derives from a conscious effort to change the text in minor and major details, including the insertion of novel ideas. Such tampering with the text is evidenced in all textual witnesses (see the discussion in chapter 4C3), including the MT. ... in spite of their precision, even the manuscripts which were written and vocalized by the Masoretes contain corruptions, changes, and erasures. More importantly, the Masoretes, and before them the soferim, acted in a relatively late stage of the development of the biblical text, and before they had put their meticulous principles into practice, the text already contained corruptions and had been tampered with during that earlier period when scribes did not treat the text with such reverence. Therefore, paradoxically, the soferim and Masoretes carefully preserved a text that was already corrupted.​

The main point, however, is that the authority of the Masoretes rests predominantly in the commitment and skill with which they preserved the variants they chose to consider authoritative.

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Yes, I am familiar with the book. But while I would agree that no text is authoritative in the ultimate theological sense (nothing exists "from Sinai," as it were), to me the search for ultimate philological authoritativeness in the text has limited usefulness so long as the number of extant documents and fragments available are so limited, and certainly entirely limited to roughly the past 2200 years or so.

I don't think the Masoretes somehow found and preserved traditions traceable right down to Moshe Rabbenu's shorthand notes, so to speak. I think they did the best they could with what they had. And so far, I have yet to come across anything else that seems more efficiently and carefully done, or suggests that, given what we have, it is somehow more authoritative. But obviously, should archaeologists discover a trove of documents tomorrow that show something else to be likely, I am certainly open to hearing it, and changing my mind.

To me, it appears that, given what the Masoretes had, and given what we have, their text is the most internally consistant for pshat sense, for lack of unnoted errors, and for carefulness in noting the inconsistencies of which they were aware. The Masoretic text, in terms of consistent content and spelling, is (if I recall right) about a 98% match for the Tanakh scrolls found in the Qumran cache, which predate the Masoretes by around a millennium. Now, there is surely nothing that proves that every single earlier draft or ktav yad of Tanakh was vastly different. But why presume that, when it would appear that our ancestors actually took considerable care to preserve the integrity of the text as best they could. Was that attempt perfect? Almost certainly not. But it seems pretty good, and there is nothing that seems better. It seems to me that the Masoretes had as good a shot as anyone at preserving some kind of authoritativeness in some reasonable degree.