Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period: Proceedings of a Sixth International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, 114) 9004291016, 9789004291010

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Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period

Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Edited by George J. Brooke Associate Editors Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar Jonathan Ben-Dov Alison Schofield

volume 114

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/stdj

Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period Proceedings of a Sixth International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira

Edited by

Eibert Tigchelaar and Pierre Van Hecke with the assistance of

Seth Bledsoe and Pieter B. Hartog

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira (6th : 2011 : Leuven, Belgium)  Hebrew of the late Second Temple period : proceedings of a sixth international symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea scrolls and Ben Sira / edited by Eibert Tigchelaar and Pierre Van Hecke.   pages cm. — (Studies on the texts of the desert of Judah, ISSN 0169-9962 ; volume 114)  Conference held in Leuven, September 19–21, 2011.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-90-04-29101-0 (hardback: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-29931-3 (e–book) 1. Hebrew language, Post-Biblical—Congresses. 2. Dead Sea scrolls—Congresses. 3. Bible. Ecclesiasticus—Language, style—  Congresses. I. Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C., editor. II. Van Hecke, P. (Pierre), editor. III. Title.  PJ4865.A35 2015  492.4—dc23 2015020785

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0169-9962 isbn 978-90-04-29101-0 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-29931-3 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents Preface vii Abbreviations viii Remarks on the Language of the Pesher Scrolls 1 Chanan Ariel and Alexey (Eliyahu) Yuditsky The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls 7 Steven E. Fassberg The Tiberian Vocalization and the Hebrew of the Second Temple Period 25 Jan Joosten Priests of Qoreb: Linguistic Enigma and Social Code in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice 37 Noam Mizrahi The Nominal Clause in the Hebrew Legal Documents and Letters from the Judean Desert 65 Uri Mor and Tamar Zewi Aspects of the (Morpho)syntax of the Infinitive in Qumran Hebrew 80 Takamitsu Muraoka Syntactic Features of ‫ כל‬in Qumran Hebrew 88 Jacobus A. Naudé and Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé Linguistic Observations on the Hebrew Prayer of Manasseh from the Cairo Genizah 112 Wido van Peursen The Nature of Qumran Hebrew as Revealed through Pesher Habakkuk 132 Gary A. Rendsburg

vi

contents

“Dislocated Negations”: Negative ‫ אל‬Followed by a Non-verbal Constituent in Biblical, Ben Sira and Qumran Hebrew 160 Jean-Sébastien Rey Some Semantic Notes on the Lexeme ‫ מדהבה‬in the DSS 175 Francesco Zanella Index of Modern Authors 197 Index of Ancient Sources 201

Preface After earlier meetings in Leiden (1995 and 1997), Beer-Sheva (1999), Strasbourg (2006), and Jerusalem (2008), a sixth international symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira was held in Leuven on September 19–21, 2011, organized by the editors of this volume with the assistance of Hanneke van Loon, and with the financial support of the Research Fund—Flanders (FWO) The conference hosted twenty scholars and several Ph.D. students. This volume contains the peer-reviewed papers of eleven of the presented papers. Half of them have been revised by the authors at the request of the editors. All of them have been copy-edited by Seth Bledsoe. Bärry Hartog has produced the indices. Eight of the eleven papers in this proceedings deal with different linguistic or philological aspects of the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran (Ariel and Yuditsky; Fassberg; Mizrahi; Muraoka; Naudé and Miller-Naudé; Rendsburg; Rey; Zanella), one more generally with the Hebrew of the Second Temple Period (Joosten), one with the Hebrew of the documents and letters found elsewhere in the Judaean Desert (Mor and Zewi), and one with the Prayer of Manasseh from the Cairo Genizah (van Peursen). The emphasis on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls warrants the inclusion of this volume, like the earlier proceedings, in the Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, and we thank the series’ editor, George J. Brooke, for peer-reviewing some of the articles, and for accepting the volume. Eibert Tigchelaar and Pierre Van Hecke Leuven, March 2015

Abbreviations General BH Biblical Hebrew CBH Classical Biblical Hebrew DSS Dead Sea Scrolls KJV King James Version LBH Late Biblical Hebrew LXX Septuaginta MH Mishnaic Hebrew MT Masoretic Text NRSV New Revised Standard Version QA Qumran Aramaic QH Qumran Hebrew RH Rabbinic Hebrew SBH Standard Biblical Hebrew Bibliographical AB AGJU ANES ANESSup AOAT AOS BDB BETL BHS BibOr BKAT CBQ DCH DJD

Anchor Bible Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums Ancient Near Eastern Studies Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement Series Alter Orient und Altes Testament American Oriental Series A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Edited by F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. Oxford, 1907 Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph. Stuttgart, 1983 Biblica et orientalia Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament Catholic Biblical Quarterly Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. Edited by D. J. A. Clines. 9 vols. Sheffield, 1993–2015 Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

abbreviations

DSD DSSEL DSSSE EBib EHLL GKC HAHAT HAL HALOT HAR HdO HS HSM HSS HTKAT ICC IELOA JANES JAOS JBL JHS JJS JM JNSL JQR JSem JSOTSS JSQ

ix Dead Sea Discoveries The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library Program. Edited by E. Tov. Leiden, 2006 The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. Edited by F. García Martínez and E. J. C. Tigchelaar. 2 vols. Leiden, 1997–1998; Leiden and Grand Rapids, 2000 Etudes bibliques Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. Edited by G. Khan. 4 vols. Leiden, 2013 Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Edited by E. Kautzsch. Translated by A. E. Cowley. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1910 Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament. Edited by W. Gesenius and H. Donner. 18th ed. Berlin, 2005 Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexicon zum Alten Testament. Edited by L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm. 5 vols. Leiden, 1967–1995 The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Edited by L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm. 5 vols. Leiden, 1994–200o Hebrew Annual Review Handbuch der Orientalistik Hebrew Studies Harvard Semitic Monographs Harvard Semitic Studies Herders Theologisches Kommentar zum Alten Testament International Critical Commentary Instruments pour l’étude des langues de l’Orient ancien Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Hebrew Studies Journal of Jewish Studies A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. Edited by P. Joüon and T. Muraoka. Rome, 1993. 2nd ed. Rome, 2006 Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Jewish Quarterly Review Journal for Semitics Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Jewish Studies Quarterly

x KBL

abbreviations

Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti libros. Edited by L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner. 2nd ed. Leiden, 1958 KS Kirjath-Sefer KZAT Kommentar zum Alten Testament LCL Loeb Classical Library Ling&P Linguistics and Philosophy LingI Linguistic Inquiry Lingua Lingua: International Review of General Linguistics MPI Monographs of the Peshitta Institute Leiden NETS New English Translation of the Septuagint. Edited by A. Pietersma and B. G. Wright. Oxford, 2007 NTOA Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus OLA Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta OrChr Oriens christianus PTSDSSP Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project REJ Revue des études juives RevQ Revue de Qumrân ScrHier Scripta hierosolymitana SAOC Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations SJSJ Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism SSL Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics SSN Studia Semitica Neerlandica STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah SVTP Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association TBN Themes in Biblical Narrative TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren. 8 vols. Grand Rapids ThWQ Theologisches Wörterbuch zu den Qumrantexten. Edited by H.-J. Fabry and U. Dahmen. Stuttgart TSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum TSHLRS Texts and Studies in the Hebrew Language and Related Subjects VT Vetus Testamentum WBC Word Bible Commentary WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament ZAH Zeitschrift für Althebraistik ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Remarks on the Language of the Pesher Scrolls* Chanan Ariel and Alexey (Eliyahu) Yuditsky The preparation of the database of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the Historical Dictionary Project at the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Jerusalem entails the reexamination of the readings of all the scrolls. During the process new readings and reconstructions are occasionally found, which could be preferred to those of the official editions. Here are presented three such innovative cases which have been revealed while editing the pesharim.1 1

4Q163 4–7 i 4–11

In these lines a commentary on Isa 9:13–14 had been preserved. The editor of the text, John Allegro, restored the survived text as follows:2 ‫ ] ֯בוא והואה‬4 ‫ ] ֯ם ו֯ ֯בי̇ ום אחד זקן‬5 ‫ ]הואה הזנב‬6

Regarding line 5 he noted: “apparently the end of a pešer on v. 13 and the beginning of the statement of v. 14.” Indeed, in chapter 9 of Isaiah we read ‫וַ ּיַ ְכ ֵרת ה׳‬

‫ה־ּׁש ֶקר הּוא‬ ֶ ‫מֹור‬ ֶ ‫ׂשּוא־פנִ ים הּוא ָהרֹאׁש וְ נָ ִביא‬ ָ ְ‫זָ ֵקן ּונ‬ ‫ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל רֹאׁש וְ זָ נָ ב ִּכ ָּפה וְ ַאגְ מֹון יֹום ֶא ָחד׃‬ ‫ ַהּזָ נָ ב‬. John Strugnell suggested an improved reading of line 5:3 ‫ אג]מון ביום אחד זקן‬5

As he has claimed, it should be better treated as the final words of v. 13, which contain a variant ‫ ביום אחד‬alternative to the Masoretic Text, whereas ‫ זקן‬begins the citation of v. 14. Thus, the text should be restored as follows: *  We would like to thank Prof. Elisha Qimron for his valuable comments. Our thanks are also due to Dr. David Prebor who has styled the English text of the article. 1  The readings are now included in Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2010–2015), 2:267, 271, 292. 2  See Allegro, DJD 5:18. These fragments consist of two partially survived columns, and the following text is situated in the right one. Since it has a full margin on the left, the preserved words should be posited in the end of the lines as presented below. 3  John Strugnell, “Notes en marge du volume V des ‘Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan,’ ” RevQ 7/26 (1970): 163–276, at 189. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004299313_002

2

Ariel and Yuditsky

‫וביום] ֯בוא והואה‬ 4 ‫ [ויכרת יהוה מישראל רואש וזנב כפה ואג] ֯מו֯ ן̇ ו֯ ֯בי̇ ום אחד זקן‬5 ‫ [ונשוא פנים הואה הרואש ונביא ומורה שקר ]הואה הזנב‬6

A careful examination of the photographs shows that Strugnell’s proposition should be preferred. But it raises another difficulty. Taking into account that the last words of line 6, ‫הואה הזנב‬, concludes v. 14, one can easily reconstruct an estimated width of the column in this manuscript. It has to be about 30–35 letters. But this is just the length of v. 13 which, therefore, should be fully cited in line 5. As a result, the surviving remains of line 4 conclude the previous sentence. Yet, it is quite unusual and non-grammatical to finish a phrase by the word ‫והואה‬, as correctly noted by Maurya Horgan.4 As a result of reexamining the photos we believe that line 4 should be deciphered otherwise. It seems that the surviving traces might be read as ‫[ ̇ב ̇יד‬ ‫נ֯ ֯טואה‬. The word ‫ נטואה‬here is an allograph of ‫נטויה‬, and such a spelling occurs elsewhere in the Scrolls.5 Fluctuations of glides spelled like this are quite common in Qumran Hebrew.6 This reading fits perfectly Isa 9:11 ‫אכלּו ֶאת יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ֹ ‫ּופ ִל ְׁש ִּתים ֵמ ָאחֹור וַ ּי‬ ְ ‫ֲא ָרם ִמ ֶּק ֶדם‬ ‫א־ׁשב ַאּפֹו וְ עֹוד יָ דֹו נְ טּויָ ה‬ ָ ֹ ‫ ְּב ָכל ֶּפה ְּב ָכל זֹאת ל‬. It is reasonable to assume that the commentary of verse 11 of chapter 9 concludes in the third line. The author or the redactor finished its Pesher with the phrase ‫ ביד נטואה‬as an allusion to ‫וְ עֹוד‬ ‫ יָ דֹו נְ טּויָ ה‬of v. 11. 2

4Q163 23 ii 14–14b

֯ ‫כיחכה איש‬,7 and the remIn the editions of this scroll the reading is: . . .[‫גדוד‬ nants of . . .[‫ איש גדוד‬make possible the identification of the phrase as a citation of the book of Hosea. Hosea (6:8–9) says: ‫ ְּוכ ַח ֵּכי‬:‫ּגִ ְל ָעד ִק ְריַת ּפ ֲֹע ֵלי ָאוֶ ן ֲע ֻק ָּבה ִמ ָּדם‬ ‫חּו־ׁש ְכ ָמה ִּכי זִ ָּמה ָעׂשּו‬ ֶ ‫דּודים ֶח ֶבר ּכ ֲֹהנִ ים ֶּד ֶרְך יְ ַר ְּצ‬ ִ ְ‫ ִאיׁש ּג‬. The scroll citation is similar to the biblical text, apart from the first word, which is ‫ כיחכה‬in the scroll vis-à-vis ‫ּוכ ַח ֵּכי‬ ְ in the Bible. How should it be understood? 4   See Maurya Horgan, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretations of Biblical Books (Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1979), 108. 5  [‫( ]ויד]ו נטוא[ה על ירושלים‬4QSama 164:2–3 [2 Sam 24:16]). 6  See Elisha Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (HSS 29; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 26 and Qimron, “‫וי״ו לסימון הגה מעבר‬,” in ‫( תשורה לשמואל׃ מחקרים בעולם המקרא‬ed. Z. Talshir, Sh. Yona, and D. Sivan; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2001), 362–75, esp. 363–64. 7  See Allegro, DJD 5:24 and Strugnell, “Notes,” 193.

Remarks on the Language of the Pesher Scrolls

3

Regarding the biblical ‫ ְּוכ ַח ֵּכי‬, commentators of Hosea floundered in explaining this word, proposing a plural form of the noun ‫“ ַח ָּכה‬fishing rod” or a peculiar form of the verb ‫“ לחכות‬to wait.”8 The Scroll’s version ‫ כיחכה‬is not less puzzling. It was suggested that it reflects a combination of the preposition -‫כ‬ and a future Piel form ‫יחכה‬.9 Yet, such a combination is common in Piyyut, but not in the Bible and in the Scrolls. Another option is to understand the word as a combination of the conjunction ‫ כי‬and the infinitive ‫חכה‬. It seems that the latter solution is not better than the former. In fact, there is no clear distinction between waw and yod in this papyrus, so it is possible to read the word with waw ‫“ כוחכה‬your power,” as suggested by Elisha Qimron. This reading apparently reflects the Septuagint version of Hosea, which translates καὶ ἡ ἰσχύς σου “and your power.”10 Prima facie, there were two different versions, ‫ ְכ ַח ֵּכי‬in the Hebrew Bible, and ‫ כוחכה‬in the Scrolls, the latter of which is seemingly reflected in the Septuagint. There is, however, another possible solution. Hosea 6:8 reads ‫ּגִ ְל ָעד ִק ְריַת‬ ‫ּפ ֲֹע ֵלי ָאוֶ ן ֲע ֻק ָּבה ִמ ָּדם‬. Its subject is ‫ ִק ְריַת ּפ ֲֹע ֵלי ָאוֶ ן‬, a feminine form, as the verbal form ‫ ֲע ֻק ָּבה‬also proves. The pronominal suffix of ‫כוחכה‬, therefore, should be the second person feminine. The scroll, however, has ‫כוחכה‬, not ‫כוחְך‬ ֵ (or ‫)כוחכי‬. But in fact, the spelling ‫ כוחכה‬might reflect the form with the suffix of second person feminine. It has already been shown that this suffix is occasionally written just as the masculine one, ‫כה‬-.11 For example, the Isaiah Scroll has: ‫ואת מי דאגת ותיראיני כיא תכזבי ואותי לוא זכרתי ולוא שמתי‬ ‫( אלה על לבכה‬57:11). Hence, the word ‫ כוחכה‬might well be understood as ‫הכוח שלְך‬, as if it were ‫כוח ֵכה‬ ֵ .12

8   For various propositions of medieval and modern commentators see Andrew A. Macintosh, Hosea: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 242. 9   See Horgan, Pesharim, 120. 10  Compare Allegro, DJD 5:25. 11  See Hannah M. Cotton and Elisha Qimron, “XḤev/Se ar 13 of 134 or 135 CE: A Wife’s Renunciation of Claims,” JJS 49 (1998): 108–18, at 111. 12  The same suffix seems to occur in the Bible, as well. In Nah 2:14, there is ‫ִהנְ נִ י ֵא ַליִ ְך נְ ֻאם‬ ‫אכל ָח ֶרב וְ ִה ְכ ַר ִּתי ֵמ ֶא ֶרץ ַט ְר ֵּפְך וְ לֹא יִ ָּׁש ַמע עֹוד קֹול‬ ַ ֹ ‫ּוכ ִפ ַיריִ ְך ּת‬ ְ ‫ה׳ ְצ ָבאֹות וְ ִה ְב ַע ְר ִּתי ֶב ָע ָׁשן ִר ְכ ָּבּה‬ ‫מ ְל ָא ֵכ ֵכה‬.ַ According to the context, ‫ מלאככה‬is your (fem.) messenger. Compare also the verb ‫ תהיה‬for ‫( תהיי‬2 fem. sg.) in Ezek 21:37 and 23:32, which was usually seen as an error; see Rimon Kasher, ‫ פירוש מדעי למקרא‬:‫( יחזקאל מקרא לישראל‬2 vols.; Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2004), 1:432, 459; Leslie C. Allen, Ezekiel 20–48 (WBC 29; Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 22, 44. It can be explained, however, as a peculiar form of ‫תהיי‬, where the last vowel ī was lowered to ē.

4

Ariel and Yuditsky

Regarding the Tiberian form ‫ ְכ ַח ֵּכי‬, its consonantal basis fits the word ‫;כ ֵֹח ִכי‬13 that is ‫ כח‬and the old original feminine suffix ‫כי‬-. It is possible, therefore, that the only difference between the Tiberian version ‫ כחכי‬and the Scrolls’ ‫כוחכה‬ is just the spelling. Both imply “your (fem.) power,” and in the former the last vowel is designated by yod whereas in the latter by he. So actually in Hosea there is, perhaps, an example of a difference between the scribal and the vocalization traditions. The spelling ‫ כחכי‬intends such a word as ‫כ ֵֹח ִכי‬, but it was vocalized as ‫ ְכ ַח ֵּכי‬. It should be noted that the Greek language has the same form for the pronouns of the second person. Hence, the translation of Septuagint ἡ ἰσχύς σου might indicate the form with the feminine suffix as well, and it could be assumed that the translator utilized the text which included the very same version as the Masoretic one.14 3

4Q177 7–11 8–11

In the scroll 4Q177 a number of biblical verses are interpreted. John Allegro, the first editor of the scroll, joined two fragments and suggested such a composite text:15 ‫עד אנה יהו] ֯ה תשכח[ני נצח עד אנה תסת]יר פניכה ממני עד אנה אשיתה‬ [ 8 ‫ [עצות בנפשי יגון בלבבי יומם] עד אנה[ ירום איבי עלי פ] ֯ש ֯ר ֯ה ֯ד ֯ב ֯ר לנ֯ צח לב אנשי‬9 ‫]◦ה◦ מי̇ [ ]לבוחנם ולצורפם‬ [ 10

He rightly stated that in these lines the words of Ps 13:2–3 are cited and interpreted. It says: ‫ַעד ָאנָ ה ה׳ ִּת ְׁש ָּכ ֵחנִ י נֶ ַצח ַעד ָאנָ ה ַּת ְס ִּתיר ֶאת ָּפנֶ יָך ִמ ֶּמּנִ י‬ ‫יֹומם ַעד ָאנָ ה יָ רּום א ִֹיְבי ָע ָלי‬ ָ ‫ַעד ָאנָ ה ָא ִׁשית ֵעצֹות ְּבנַ ְפ ִׁשי יָ גֹון ִּב ְל ָב ִבי‬

At the end of line 9 he read ‫פ]שר הדבר לנצח לב אנשי‬, translating “the interpretation of the phrase ‘forever’: the hearts of men of [. . . .” Allegro understood the 13  Basing on the Septuagint version, Albin Van Hoonacker proposed to treat ‫ כחכי‬of the Hebrew Bible as ‫כ ֵֹח ִכי‬, where the suffix ‫כי‬- is related to ‫ גלעד‬mentioned in verse 8; see Albin van Hoonacker, Les douze petits prophètes (Paris: Gabalda, 1908), 65–66. 14  As has already been suggested by Wilhelm Rudolph, Hosea (KZAT; Gütersloh: Mohn, 1966), 142 and Macintosh, Hosea, 244. 15  See Allegro, DJD 5:71.

Remarks on the Language of the Pesher Scrolls

5

word ‫ לנצח‬as ‫“ לנֶ ַצח‬forever,” assuming, perhaps, that it is a citation or an interpretation of the word ‫ נצח‬of the Psalms. John Strugnell added two more fragments reconstructing as follows:16 ‫עד אנה יהו] ֯ה תשכח[ני נצח עד אנה תסת]יר פניכה ממני עד אנה אשיתה‬ [ 8 ‫הדבר [ע?]ל נצח לב אנשי‬ ֯ ‫ [עצות ] ֯בנפשי [יגון ב] ̇ל ̇ב ֯ב[י י]ו֯ ֯מ ֯ם עד אנה[ ירום איבי עלי ] ֯פ ֯ש ֯ר‬ 9 ‫]לבוחנם ולצורפם‬ [‫] ֯עת[ ]נה באחרית הימים כיא‬ [‫ [ ] ֯ה‬10

He thought that ‫ נצח‬was better explained as “cleansing,”17 and the author of the Pesher apparently had spoken of the purification of men’s hearts. Annette Steudel argued that the verb ‫ נצח‬has a similar meaning in Arabic and Ethiopian.18 Steudel presented an alternative reconstruction: ‫תשכח[ני נצח עד אנה תסת]יר פניכה ממני עד אנה אשיתה‬ ֯ ‫עד אנה יהו] ֯ה‬ [ 8 ‫הדבר [ע]ל נצח לב‬ ֯ ‫ [עצות ] ֯בנפשי [יגון ב] ֯ל ֯ב ֯ב[י י]ו֯ ֯מ ֯ם עד אנה יר[ום איבי עלי ] ֯פ ֯שר‬9 ‫אנשי‬ [‫] ֯תה באחרית הימים כיא‬ [‫]נ֯ ת‬ [‫ [היחד ] ֯ה‬10 ‫]לבוחנם ולצורפם‬

The completion ]‫אנשי [היחד‬, however, does not fit the remnants of the following letter ‫ה‬. Qimron has proposed reconstructing ‫אנשי [התור]ה‬, which seems to be better. We believe that it is possible to reconstruct the full sentence, as follows: ‫תשכח[ני נצח עד אנה תסת]יר פניכה ממני עד אנה אשיתה‬ ̊ ‫עד אנה יהו] ֯ה‬ [ 8 ‫הדבר לנצח לב אנשי‬ ֯ ‫ [עצות ] ֯בנפשי [יגון ב] ̇ל ̇ב ֯ב[י י]ו֯ ֯מ ֯ם עד אנה[ ירום איבי עלי פ] ֯ש ֯ר‬9 ‫]לבוחנם ולצורפם‬ [‫ [התור] ֯ה[ ב] ̇עת[ צרת] ̇מה באחרית הימים כיא‬10

Our reconstruction is supported by another text, Barkhi Nafshi which reads:

‫( לחזק לב נדכה ולנצח לרוח כה לנחם דלים בעת צרתמה‬4Q436 1 i 1). This reading has been suggested by Qimron interpreting ‫ לרוח כה‬as ‫לרוח כהה‬, “depressed, gloomy soul.”19 Here is a clear parallel ‫ לחזק לב‬vis-à-vis ‫לנצח לרוח‬.20 A similar parallel is found in the Hodayot ‫[הקדי] ֯שו שמו בשפתי עוז ולשון נצח הרימו לבד‬

16  See Strugnell, “Notes,” 243. 17  Ibid., 245. 18  See Annette Steudel, Der Midrasch zur Eschatologie aus der Qumrangemeinde (STDJ 13; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 95–96, n. 5. 19  Other scholars have read ‫לריח בה‬, “to make delight in it” and the like see DJD 24:297–99. 20  See also the discussion in DJD 24:300.

6

Ariel and Yuditsky

‫( קולכמה‬4Q427 7 i 16). In this clause the noun ‫ נצח‬corresponds to the noun ‫עוז‬ “strength.”21 More than fourty years ago Yechezkel Kutscher claimed that the verb ‫ חז״ק‬is relatively common in the books of Chronicles because it is a calque of Aramaic ‫נצ״ח‬.22 Now the Dead Sea Scrolls corroborate his assumption. Two additional remarks should be made. Firstly, the editor of the scroll 4Q299 read ‫[ברק]י̇ ם עשה לנצח גשמים‬, translating “lightning bolts He made for eternal rain.”23 In fact, it should be better interpreted as “strengthening the rain,” just as in the Mishnah there is an expression ‫גבורות גשמים‬. And secondly, we are able to understand better the method of interpretation of the Dead Sea community. It seems that reading the Psalms they understood ‫ נצח‬as “eternity,” but when preached they read !‫ ַעד ָאנָ ה ה׳ ִּת ְׁש ָּכ ֵחנִ י? נַ ַצח‬, an imperative form, that means “strengthen me.” It may well be a kind of very early evidence of the Midrash ‫ אל תקרי‬and ‫יש אם למסורת‬.24

21  Eileen Schuller translates “mighty tongue”; see DJD 24:99. She notes, DJD 24:104, “‘‫ ’נצח‬in sense of ‘strength’ is frequent in Qumran Hebrew.” The verb ‫ נצ״ח‬in the War Scroll should also be interpreted as “strengthen,” as, for example, in 1QM 8:1 ‫והחצוצרות תהיינה מריעות‬ ‫ ;לנצח אנשי הקלע‬see Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, 1:119. Noam Mizrahi, “‫ לביאורו של נתון מוקשה ברשימת‬:‫מן ה‘מנצח’ שבמקרא אל ה‘מזמור לדוד’ בקומראן‬ ‫ על רקע מעמדו של השורש נצ״ח בלשון הבית השני‬11QPsa ‫ ” ‘חיבורי דוד’ שבמגילה‬in Avi Hurvitz Festschrift (ed. S. E. Fassberg and A. Maman; Language Studies 11–12; Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 2008), 199–212 has discussed the semantics of the verb ‫ נצ״ח‬in the Scrolls, but has drawn quite different conclusions. 22  See E. Yechezkel Kutscher, “‫בשולי מאמרה של ש׳ יפת‬,” Leshonenu 31 (1967): 280–81. It is worth mentioning that Kutscher himself stated that the verb ‫ אתנצח‬in Imperial, Egyptian, and Biblical Aramaic (Dan 6:4) has to be understood as ‫הצטיין‬, i.e., “to distinguish oneself” etc.; see Kutscher, Hebrew and Aramaic Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977), 18. This assumption has been accepted by scholars; see, for example, Godfrey R. Driver, Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford: Clarendon, 1957), 65; HALOT 5:1933; Takamitsu Muraoka and Bezalel Porten, A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic (HdO 32; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 259. Yet, in the light of the present discussion, the verb ‫ אתנצח‬in these dialects of Aramaic should be better interpreted as, e.g., “to strengthen,” “to overcome.” 23  See DJD 20:45–46. 24  Regarding these Midrashim see Moshe Zippor, ‫( על מסירה ומסורה‬Tel Aviv: Papirus, 2001), 166–210.

The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls Steven E. Fassberg 1 Introduction From the beginning scholars have noted the influence of Aramaic on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. E. Y. Kutscher commented on it already in 1950 in a review of M. Burrows’ edition of the Great Isaiah Scroll,1 and a year later H. Yalon pointed out several grammatical Aramaisms while reviewing the same edition.2 In 1958, towards the end of the first decade of research, M. Goshen-Gottstein presented the first linguistic overview of all published Scrolls in which he also referred repeatedly to Aramaisms.3 A comprehensive and detailed analysis of suspected Aramaisms was presented a year later in Kutscher’s monumental book on the language of 1QIsaa, where more than twenty pages were devoted to the subject.4 In his posthumous History of the Hebrew Language, Kutscher summarized the situation in the Hebrew Scrolls as follows: “The Aramaic influence is all pervasive. The Isaiah Scroll especially is permeated by Aramaic elements, but they are to be found in the other Scrolls as well.”5 Kutscher’s general assessment is accepted by all who deal with the language of the Scrolls, though scholars disagree over specific examples. For instance, E. Qimron wrestles throughout his 1986 grammar of the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls with the question of different Aramaisms, often agreeing with Kutscher, occasionally expressing hesitation, and at times preferring to 1  E. Y. Kutscher, “‫ טופס א‬,‫ מגילות גנוזות‬:‫הרקע הלשוני של מגילת ישעיהו‬,” Haaretz (Tel Aviv), September 25, 1950. Kutscher noted the Aramaic background of the scribe and mentioned in particular the forms ‫ מהסיר‬,‫דרכוהי‬, and ‫גופן‬. 2  H. Yalon, review of M. Burrows, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls of St. Mark’s Monastery, vol. I: The Isaiah Manuscript and the Habakkuk Commentary, KS 27 (1951): 163–72 [Hebrew]. 3  M. H. Goshen-Gottstein, “Linguistic Structure and Tradition in the Qumran Documents,” ScrHier 4 (1958): 101–36. 4  E. Y. Kutscher, The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1959), 19–22, 141–63 [Hebrew]. Further references to this work will be given according to the English translation, The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (1Q Isaa) (STDJ 6; Brill: Leiden, 1974). 5  E. Y. Kutscher, A History of the Hebrew Language, (ed. R. Kutscher; Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1982), 104.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004299313_003

8

Fassberg

see independent and parallel Hebrew developments.6 Recent concise statements on the subject include observations by Qimron and by M. Kister in the two-volume work of collected essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls from 2009,7 by J. Joosten in the Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls from 2010,8 and also in 2010 by M. Abegg, Jr. in a contribution to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert volume containing the Isaiah Scrolls.9 Now that all of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been published and in the light of earlier and later Hebrew and Aramaic evidence from Palestine, I think it only appropriate to reevaluate the nature and extent of Aramaic penetration into the Hebrew of the Scrolls as well as the distribution of Aramaisms in the different documents. A similar reevaluation of the Hebrew influence on the Aramaic Scrolls was undertaken a few years ago by C. Stadel, who demonstrated that most Hebrew borrowings into Aramaic were religious and technical lexemes for which there were no Aramaic equivalents, and that the influence of Hebrew on syntax and morphology was negligible.10 Unlike in the case of Hebraisms in Aramaic, which Stadel attributed to the literary and religious prestige of Hebrew, Aramaisms in Hebrew have been assumed, on the whole, to be the result of a spoken Aramaic superstratum. For example, Kutscher wrote that Aramaic was the mother tongue of the 1QIsaa scribe; however, he also displayed sensitivity to the possibility of written Aramaic influence on the scribe, who was, in his words, “undoubtedly familiar with the Aramaic literature of his day.”11 In the third meeting of this group in Beersheba in 1999, M. Bar-Asher conjectured that the Qumran scribes may have drawn not only on the Hebrew Bible, but also on a literary Aramaic corpus composed of Aramaic biblical Targumim or related works.12 Nonetheless, the question 6   E. Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (HSS 29; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 116 and “Aramaic” in the subject index (119). 7   E. Qimron, “The Language and Linguistic Background of the Qumran Compositions,” in The Qumran Scrolls and Their World (ed. M. Kister; 2 vols.; Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2009), 2:551–60, esp. 552, 555 [Hebrew]; and from the same work M. Kister, “Some Lexical Features of the Writings from Qumran,” 2:565–66 [Hebrew]. 8   J. Joosten, “Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. T. H. Lim and J. J. Collins; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 351–74, esp. 358–59. 9   M. Abegg, Jr., “Linguistic Profile of the Isaiah Scrolls,” DJD 32:25–41. 10  C. Stadel, Hebraismen in den aramäischen Texten vom Toten Meer (Schriften der Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg 11; Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008). 11  Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 24. 12  M. Bar-Asher, “A Few Remarks on Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic in Qumran Hebrew,” in Diggers at the Well: Proceedings of a Third International Symposium on the Hebrew of

The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls 9

of spoken versus written influence has generally been ignored by scholars, who have tended to focus on the general status of Hebrew vis-à-vis Aramaic.13 Joosten expresses what is the majority view today when he concludes that Hebrew and Aramaic are adstrata and that “The amount of Aramaic influence in the Hebrew Qumran scrolls can best be explained as reflecting the bilingualism of the authors and their readers. Although the sectarian writings were composed in Hebrew, the group among which they came into being knew and practiced these two languages.”14 It is a commonplace in linguistics that languages in contact tend to influence one another more in certain fields than in others. At the most frequent end of the “scale of adoptability,”15 a term coined by E. Haugen in the 1950s, is lexical borrowing, and at the other end are morphological and grammatical loans. In between one finds phonological, semantic, and syntactic influences. In cases of bilingualism involving closely related languages, structural borrowing may increase.16 I shall survey the nature and extent of Aramaic borrowings against the backdrop of Haugen’s scale of adoptability. 2 Orthography One indicator of the influence of written language on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the occasional use of alef as against he to represent final -ā and -ē, as is common in Official and Middle Aramaic, e.g., ‫“ וגבורא‬and bravery” 6Qpap apocrSam–Kings [6Q9] 45 2; ‫“ התורא‬the law” 1QSa 1:1; ‫“ ויבנא‬and he built” 1QIsaa 4:13 (‫ וַ ֶּיִבן‬Isa 5:2); ‫“ היא‬it was” 4QMMTe [4Q398] 14–17 i 5; 14–17 ii 1, 2; ‫שתים עשרא‬

the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira (ed. T. Muraoka and J. F. Elwolde; STDJ 36; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 12–19, esp. 16–19. 13  J. C. Greenfield’s description of a Standard Literary Aramaic at Qumran is directly relevant to the question of the nature of the Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls as will be seen. See J. C. Greenfield, “Standard Literary Aramaic,” in Actes du premier congrès de linguistique sémitique et chamito–sémitique, Paris, 16–19 juillet 1969 (ed. A. Caquot and D. Cohen; Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 159; Paris: Mouton, 1974): 280–89. 14  Joosten, “Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek,” 359. 15  E. Haugen, “The Analysis of Linguistic Borrowing,” Language 26 (1950): 210–31, at 224. Before him W. D. Whitney, “On Mixture in Language,” TAPA 12 (1881): 5–26 presented a decreasing scale of borrowings: nouns, other parts of speech, suffixes, inflections, and sounds. 16  S. G. Thomason, “Language Change and Language Contact,” Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (ed. K. Brown; 14 vols.; 2nd ed.; Oxford: Elsevier, 2006), 10:339–46, at 341.

10

Fassberg

“twelve” 4QShirShabbf [4Q405] 20 ii 21–22 6; ‫“ הנא‬behold” 4QPsf [4Q88] X 11. Final alef is especially frequent in the Copper Scroll [3Q15].17 3 Phonology Several phonological phenomena seem to point to Aramaic influence. The common sporadic shift in Aramaic in general, and in Palestinian Aramaic in particular, of a > o before labials and r (known also in Tannaitic Hebrew)18 is well-attested in different Qumran manuscripts, particularly 1QIsaa, e.g., ‫“ אבירום‬Abiram” 4QNumb [4Q27] 6:6 12, 19:33 2–40 6 (‫ ֲא ִב ָירם‬Num 16:1; 26:9) and 4QPhyl K [4Q138] 1 13 (Deut 11:6); ‫“ הוררט‬Ararat” 1QIsaa 31:19 (‫ֲא ָר ָרט‬ Isa 37:38); ‫“ מהורסיך‬your destroyers” 1QIsaa 41:16 (‫ ְמ ָה ְר ַסיִ ְך‬Isa 49:17); ‫ובצובים‬ “and on litters” 1QIsaa 54:10 (‫ ַּוב ַצ ִּבים‬Isa 66:20); ‫“ חורטומים‬magicians” 4QRPc [4Q365] 2 3; ‫“ והיורדן‬and the Jordan” 4QapocrJoshb [4Q379] 12 6; ‫“ והחורגול‬and the cricket” 11QTemplea [11Q19] 48:3.19 The related shift of a > o / _ n, well known in Aramaic,20 is found in ‫“ רחמון‬merciful” (4QNon-Canonical Psalms B [4Q381] 10–11 3). An unequivocal Aramaic phonological feature is prenasalization, i.e., the substitution of nasalization for gemination.21 It is attested several times in verbs: ‫“ ינתן‬he will give” (as against ‫ )יִ ֵּתן‬in the biblical manuscript 4QExod–Levf [4Q17] 2 ii 14 (Exod 40:19, 20, 22) and in a biblical citation in 4QTest [4Q175] 3 (Deut 5:29). In non-biblical manuscripts one finds ‫“ בהנכון‬when it is established” 4QShirb [4Q511] 63–64 2 4; ‫“ להנצילם‬to save them” CD 14:2. Perhaps ‫תנצור‬ in ‫“ ותנצור תורתכה‬you will keep your law” 4QBarkhi Nafshic [4Q436 ] 2 i 4 should also be included here; the original nasal is preserved in the verb ‫ נצר‬in the Imperfect in Biblical Hebrew only in pause (e.g., ‫ ְּוב ִר ְיתָך יִ נְ צֹרּו‬Deut 33:9, which 17  J. T. Milik, DJD 3:163–64; Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 23. 18  Yalon, review of Burrows, 169; Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 496–97. 19  Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 496–98; E. Qimron, “The Language of the Temple Scroll,” Leshonenu 42 (1978): 83–98, esp. 90 [Hebrew]. Qimron’s interpreration of ‫ שומה‬as “there” (11QTemplea [11Q19] 59:4) is difficult; the common interpretation of “a waste” is preferable because of the waw connecting it with ‫“ ולשרקה ולחורבה‬and a mockery and a ruin.” 20  C. Brockelmann, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen (2 vols.; Berlin: Reuther & Reichard 1908–1913), 1:203. 21   Goshen-Gottstein “Linguistic Structure,” 15; Sh. Morag, “Qumran Hebrew: Some Typological Observations,” VT 38 (1988): 151–53; W. R. Garr, “Prenasalization,” in Studies in Semitic and Afroasiatic Linguistics Presented to Gene B. Gragg (ed. C. L. Miller; SAOC 60; Chicago, Ill.: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2007), 81–109.

The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls 11

is attested as ‫ ובריתך ינצר‬in 4QTest [4Q175] 17; cf. ‫ יצורו‬4QBeatitudes [4Q525] 5 9). Prenasalization is also responsible for what is commonly described as the non-assimilation of the preposition ‫ מן‬under the influence of Aramaic, e.g., ‫“ ומן גוי נכר‬and from a gentile nation” 11QTa [11Q19] LVII 11; ‫“ מן תאנה‬from a fig” 1QIsaa 28:4–5 (‫ ִמ ְּת ֵאנָ ה‬Isa 34:4); ‫“ ומן בנות‬and from daughters” 1QIsaa 46:16 (‫ּומ ָּבנֹות‬ ִ Isa 56:5).22 A phenomenon related to prenasalization is the rhotacism found in place of gemination: there are seven examples of the proper noun ‫“ דרמשק‬Damascus” in 1QIsaa.23 The addition of a prosthetic alef before consonants, especially consonantal clusters involving sibilants, is a feature that is attested in Aramaic, Hebrew, and in Semitic languages in general,24 but since it is a relatively frequent phenomenon in Palestinian Aramaic Targumim,25 one wonders if the prosthetic vowel in ‫ אזרוע‬reflects the influence of Palestinian Aramaic or Biblical Aramaic ‫ֶא ְד ָרע‬ “arm”26: ‫ אזרוע‬in 11QTa [11Q19] 20:16 and also a few times in biblical quotations (Deut 5:15) in phylacteries (4Q137, 139, XQ3) versus ‫ זרוע‬in Phyl J [4Q137] 1 22; Phyl L [4Q139] 1 8; Phyl 3 [XQ3] 1 24; Phyl A [4Q128] 1 29; 8QMez [8Q4] 1 16 (Deut 11:2); 4QXIIg [4Q82] (Hos 7:15); 4QIsac [4Q57] (Isa 52:10); 11QPsa [11Q5] (Ps 136:12). Of course, Biblical Hebrew too knows ‫אזרוע‬, but only in the book of Jeremiah, where it might also be explained as Aramaic influence.27 Could ‫“ אשאול‬underworld” 11QPsa 23:4 [11Q5] (‫ ְׁשאֹול‬Ps 141:7) and ‫“ ולאזכרון‬and for a remembrance” XHev/Se5 1 3 (‫ ְּולזִ ָּכרֹון‬Exod 13:9) also be additional examples of this phenomenon?28 Early on in Qumran research scholars suggested that two more phonological features were Aramaisms. The first was the weakening of gutturals and the second, general penultimate stress. With regard to the first, Goshen-Gottstein, 22  Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 214; Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 30–31. 23  Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 3–4, 102. 24  E. Qimron, “A Grammar of the Hebrew Language of the Dead Sea Scrolls” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1976), 117–18 [Hebrew]. 25  G. Dalman, Grammatik des jüdisch–palästinischen Aramäisch nach den Idiomen des palästinischen Talmud, des Onkelostargum und Prophetentargum und der jerusalemischen Targume (2nd ed.; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1905), 94. 26  ‫ ְּד ָרע‬is also attested in Biblical Aramaic. 27  See Sh. Morag, “On the Historical Validity of the Vocalization of the Hebrew Bible,” JAOS 94 (1974): 307–15, at 315 n. 48, where he calls Official Aramaic influence on the language of Jeremiah plausible. 28  Were these two nouns realized with consonantal clusters at Qumran? For different Aramaic realizations of ‫ שאול‬without prosthesis in Aramaic dialects, see Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 500.

12

Fassberg

for example, considered the weakening of the gutturals attested in Qumran manuscripts an Aramaism, either direct or indirect.29 The weakening, merger, and disappearance of gutturals is indeed attested to varying degrees in different Aramaic dialects both in the east and in the west, though in neither area does it affect all dialects to the same extent so one cannot speak of a general Aramaic phenomenon. In eastern dialects it is attributed to the historical legacy of Akkadian, whereas in the west, it is blamed on Greek.30 Nonetheless, though there is no proof that Aramaic is responsible for the weakening of the gutturals in the Dead Sea Scrolls, it may have played some role in the light of the weakening in later Palestinian Aramaic sources (Jewish Palestinian, Christian Palestinian, and Samaritan). With regard to word stress, some scholars have invoked the Aramaic pattern of accentuation in order to explain the orthography of 3 masc. pl. imperfect verbs of the type ‫יקטולו‬, masc. pl. imperatives ‫קטולו‬,31 and segholate nouns written ‫ קוטול‬or showing the fluctuation ‫קוטל‬/‫קטול‬.32 In classical Aramaic stress is generally on the penultimate syllable when the word ends in a vowel, and on the ultimate syllable when the word ends in a consonant or what once was originally consonantal. In later Palestinian Aramaic one finds this system still remains in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, but no longer in Christian Palestinian Aramaic nor in Samaritan Aramaic. Plausible alternative explanations, however, have been proposed for each of these categories in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls and so here, too, Aramaic influence is speculative. 4 Lexicon The biblical Dead Sea Scrolls contain lexical Aramaisms, though by no means a deluge. Kutscher pointed out that 1QIsaa sometimes substitutes infrequent Hebrew roots of nouns and verbs with Hebrew roots that are common in Aramaic, e.g., √‫ אמר‬for √‫ספר‬, √‫ בחן‬for √‫בחר‬, √‫ זעק‬for √‫צעק‬, √‫ עיל‬for √‫עול‬, and 29  Goshen-Gottstein, “Linguistic Structure,” 7. For the statistics concerning the misspellings with gutturals, see Abegg, “Linguistic Profile,” 29–30. 30  Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 508–11. 31  Abegg, “Linguistic Profile,” 32 notes eleven occurrences of ‫ קטולו‬in the non-biblical manuscripts from Qumran and forty-four in the biblical manuscripts. 32  Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 194–97, 502–4. For recent discussions and bibliography, see Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 40–42; Qimron, “,‫ּגְ ד ֹל הזרוע‬ ‫וקד ֹש ההיכל‬ ְ ‫ּגְ ב ַֹּה הקומה‬,” in Yaakov Bentolila Jubilee Volume: Research Papers in Hebrew Linguistics, Hebrew Literature and Jewish Languages (ed. D. Sivan and P.-I. HalevyKirtchuk; Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2003), 327–39.

The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls 13

√‫ שרי‬for √‫שרע‬.33 Note also the noun ‫“ מאפכה‬overturning” for ‫מהפכה‬, if the alef indeed reflects the Aramaic √‫ = ( אפך‬Hebrew √‫ )הפך‬and not merely an ad hoc weakening of the guttural h > ʾ.34 In a quotation of a biblical verse in a nonbiblical text, 4QTanḥ [4Q176] 8–11 6, one finds ‫“ ארמלותך‬your widowhood” for ‫( אלמנותך‬it also shows up in Tannaitic Hebrew). A certain and common Aramaism in some biblical manuscripts, as well as non-biblical, is the plural base of the noun ‫“ יום‬day”35: ‫ היומים‬4QTest [4Q175] 4 (‫ ַהּיָ ִמים‬Deut 5:29); ‫ביומי‬ 1QIsaa (‫ ִב ֵימי‬Isa 1:1); ‫“ כול יומי ממשלת בליעל‬all the days of the wicked dominion” 1QS 2:19; ‫“ כול יומי מואסו במשפטי אל‬all the days that he rejects God’s laws” 1QS 3:5; and in some phylacteries (‫ ִיָמ ָימה‬Exod 13:10): ‫למוע[ד]ו מימים יומימוה‬ Phyl B [4Q129]; ‫ [ מיומים י‬Phyl I [4Q136]; ‫ למועדוה מ[יומי]ם יומימוה‬Phyl M [4Q140]; ‫ למעדוה מימים יומימה‬Phyl R [4Q145]. It should be stressed that apart from 1QIsaa, the biblical manuscripts that have survived are extremely fragmentary and this may be the reason why they exhibit fewer lexical Aramaisms than does 1QIsaa.36 Non-biblical scrolls also exhibit borrowings, though the number of examples is actually quite limited. One cannot say that they are particularly frequent in any one text.37 Borrowed nouns include ‫“ ְּכ ִליל‬crown,” which appears four times in the expression ‫ כליל כבוד‬1QS 4:7, 1QSb 4:2, 1QHa 17:25; and once in the expression ‫“ כליל תפארת‬crown of glory” (4QEschatological Work B [4Q472] ii 8),38 as well as words and expressions that are of ultimate Akkadian origin: ‫“ אוחזי אבות‬intercessors” (abbūt) 1QS 2:9, 4QCurses [4Q280] 2 4; ‫מלאך‬ 33  Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 219, 223, 233, 289, 272, 313. 34  Ibid., 251. 35  Yalon, review of Burrows, 167; H. Yalon, review of M. Burrows, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls of St. Mark’s Monastery, vol. II, 2: Plates and Transcription of the Manual of Discipline, KS 28 (1952–1953): 65 [Hebrew]; Goshen-Gottstein, “Linguistic Structure,” 32 n. 17. 36  Abegg, “Linguistic Profile,” 25 points out that 1QIsaa contains more than 24% of all the words (tokens) attested in the biblical manuscripts found at Qumran. 37  Kister, “Lexical Features,” 565–66. 4QTest [4Q175] does contain a number of Aramaiclooking forms in a relatively small text, but only one, maybe two (depending on the readings), are lexical. F. M. Cross notes: Perf. 1 sg. ‫“ שמעת‬I heard” (1), ‫“ ינתן‬he will give” (3), and ‫“ היומים‬the days” (4). One should also add ‫“ לידעתיכהי‬I don’t know you (fem. sg.)” (16). See Cross, “Testimonia [4Q175 = 4QTestimonia = 4QTestim],” in Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related Documents (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and H. W. M. Rietz; PTSDSSP 6b; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 308–27, at 312. J. Strugnell read two more forms as Aramaic: ‫“ ויהוה‬and he will be” (3; Cross ‫ )ויהיה‬and ‫“ בתהלותוהי‬and with his praises” (21; so too Qimron [n. 51 below], but Cross ‫ ;)בתהלותיהו‬see Strugnell, “Notes en marge du Volume V des ‘Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan,’ ” RevQ 7 (1970): 163–276, at 225–29. 38  See also Sir 45:8 and the Hekhalot literature.

14

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‫“ אבות‬angel of intercession” 4QPrayer of Enosh [4Q369] 2 1; ‫( מלוש‬malwāš)

“sign of the zodiac” 4QLament by a Leader [4Q439] 1 i 2.39 Original *qutl nouns spelled ‫ קטול‬are common in different Dead Sea Scrolls, e.g., ‫“ בסור גמול‬unripe grapes” 1QIsaa (‫ ּב ֶֹסר ּג ֵֹמל‬Isa 18:5), ‫“ ישור לב‬straight of heart” 1QS 11:2; ‫“ ארוך אפים‬slow to anger” 1QHa 9:8; ‫‘ עצום ידינו‬strength of our hands’ 1QM 11:5. Not all *qutl nouns show up as ‫קטול‬, however. Most scholars consider those that do to be Aramaisms; a notable exception is Qimron, who takes them as authentic Hebrew forms for which there are parallels in the Masoretic text.40 Verbs in non-biblical texts inflected as Hebrew but from Aramaic roots include ‫“ נתארמלה‬she was widowed” 4QDf [4Q271] 3 12 and ‫( תבית‬tābīt < √‫)בות‬ “she will spend the night” 1QHa 25:6. Aramaic prepositions have also penetrated both biblical and non-biblical texts. One finds ‫ תחות‬for ‫“ תחת‬under, in place of,” e.g., ‫ ותחות‬1QIsaa 4:1 (‫וְ ַת ַחת‬ Isa 3:24; preceded in same verse by ‫ תוחת‬tūt?), ‫ מתוחת‬1QS 7:13; ‫ בעקר‬for ‫“ אצל‬by, from” 4QPseudo-Ezekiela [4Q385] 6 8 (also attested in Samaritan Aramaic), and, as attested in Late Biblical Hebrew, ‫ על‬for ‫אל‬: ‫“ ונהרו עלוהי‬and they will stream unto him” 1QIsaa 2:9 (‫ ונהרו אליו‬Isa 2:2), as well as Isa 6:9, 17:8, 22:5, 22:11, 36:7, 36:12, 46:7, 65:6, and ‫ על‬for ‫( ל‬47:1, 9:12, 36:11).41 See also the preposition ‫מן‬ above (§3 under prenasalization). 5 Semantics There is no doubt that Aramaic is the source of several calques. Qimron presented a comprehensive collection of loan translations known at the time in his 1986 grammar.42 Underlying Aramaic words and syntagms can be found throughout the non-biblical corpus, e.g., ‫“ בתדירא‬frequently” 1QM 2:2 (‫ ִּב ְת ִד ָירא‬Dan 6:17, 21), ‫“ לאחת‬very” 4QHoroscope [4Q186] 1 iii 4; = Targum Onqelos ‫)לחדא‬. Note also in the Vision of Gabriel ‫“ מן לפני‬before me” (16) and ‫“ מן לפניך‬before you” (17), which are calques on the common Aramaic ‫מן ֳק ָדם‬ (e.g., Dan 2:15, 18).43 39  Cf. the synonym, ‫מזל‬, which also came into Hebrew and Aramaic from Akkadian. 40  Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 201–3, 502–4; Qimron, “‫גדל הזרוע‬,” esp. 32. For a list of nouns, see Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 37–38. 41  There are several cases of ‫ אל‬in 1QIsaa for MT ‫על‬. See Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 404–5. 42  Qimron, Hebrew of Dead Sea Scrolls, 116, 119. 43  See the discussion of M. Bar-Asher, “On the Language of the Vision of Gabriel,” RevQ 23 (2008): 491–524, at 493 n. 16.

The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls 15

6 Syntax 4QMMT is marked by syntagms that seem to be calques on Aramaic compound conjunctions containing ‫די‬/-‫ד‬, e.g., ‫“ שלוא‬lest” (= ‫ )די לא‬4QMMTc [4Q396] 1–2 iv 7; -‫“ בגלל ש‬so that” (= -‫ לגלל ד‬,-‫ )מן בגלל ד‬4QMMTc [4Q396] 1–2 iv 8; -‫בשל ש‬ “so that” (= -‫ )בדיל ד‬4QMMTa [4Q394] 3–7 i 15, 3–7 i 19, 4QMMTb [4Q395] 10; 4QMMTd [4Q397] 23 2; 4QMMTe [4Q398] 14–17 ii 6; ‫“ משכתוב‬as it is written” (= ‫ )מדכתיב‬4QMMTc [4Q396] 1–2 iv 5.44 J. Carmignac argued that the positioning of an object before the infinitive in Qumran Hebrew texts is the result of Aramaic influence, e.g., ‫וכוחם לתקן‬ “they should properly exercise their strength” 1QS 1:12; ‫נדיבי לב להחזיק בגבורת‬ ‫“ אל‬to strengthen the willing hearted by the might of God” 1QM [1Q33] 10:5.45 Qimron believes that there are not enough examples in the Hebrew texts to prove Carmignac’s assertion.46 7 Morphology Several morphological phenomena have been attributed to Aramaic. For example, one finds in 1QIsaa Aramaic-looking 2 fem. sg. forms―the independent pronoun ‫ אתי‬at 1QIsaa 42:24, 25, 28 (‫ ַא ְּת‬Isa 51:9, 10, 12); the pronominal suffix ‫כי‬- (‫“ וגואלכי‬and your redeemer” 1QIsaa 41:27 [‫ ּג ֲֹא ֵלְך‬Isa 49:26]); the object suffix ‫כי‬- (‫“ אשכחכי‬I will forget you” 1QIsaa 41:15 [‫ ֶא ְׁש ָכ ֵחּך‬Isa 49:15]); and the perfect suffix ‫תי‬- (‫“ שמתי‬you placed” 1QIsaa 29:25 [‫ ַש ֹ ְמ ְּת‬Isa 47:6, 7]).47 Abegg has discussed the number of occurrences of 2 fem. sg. forms in the Scrolls:48 the 2 fem. sg. independent pronoun ‫ אתי‬is attested three times (as noted above) in 1QIsaa as well as once possibly in a non-biblical text (4QpapJubh [4Q223–224] 2 ii 11); the 2 fem. sg. perfect ‫תי‬- shows up in eighteen out of thirty examples of the 2 fem. sg. perfect in 1QIsaa but outside of this scroll only twice, and both times in biblical manuscripts (1QIsab 20:20 [Isa 47:7] and 4QJerc 47–54 11 44  E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, DJD 10:74–75, 95. 45  J. Carmignac, “Un aramaïsme biblique et qumrânien: l’infinitif placé après son complément d’objet,” RevQ 5 (1966): 503–20. 46  Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 74. 47  For the examples from 1QIsaa, see Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 188– 90. For a general discussion, see E. Qimron, review of Z. Ben-Ḥayyim, The Literary and Oral Tradition of Hebrew and Aramaic amongst the Samaritans, Vol. 5, KS 54 (1979): 365 [Hebrew]. 48  Abegg, “Linguistic Profile,” 31, 33.

16

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[Jer 31:21]); the 2 fem. sg. pronominal suffix ‫כי‬- is preserved twenty-seven times in 1QIsaa as against 217 occurrences of ‫ך‬-; there are two more examples of ‫כי‬- in other biblical manuscripts (4QPsb 28 i 18 [Ps 116:10] and 4QLam 3:2 [Lam 1:12]) and five examples in non-biblical manuscripts (4QPsf [4Q88] 8:13; 4QpIsaa [4Q161] 5–6 7; 4QTanḥ [4Q176] 8–11 6–7, 50 1). As an object suffix, it may possibly underlie the unexpected orthography ‫“ לידעתיכהי‬I don’t know you” 4QTest [4Q175] 16 (= ‫)?לא ידעתיכי‬.49 The 3 masc. sg. suffix ‫והי‬- on plural nouns and prepositions is limited neither to 1QIsaa nor to biblical texts, e.g., ‫“ ידוהי‬his hands” 1QIsaa 37:10 (‫ יָ דֹו‬Isa 44:5); ‫“ עלוהי‬upon him” 1QpHab 12:12; ‫“ רגלוהי‬his feet” 1QS 6:13; ‫“ בתהלותוהי‬with his praises” 4QTest [4Q175] 21.50 It also shows up in non-biblical texts such as the Community Rule (1QS) and Pesher Habakkuk (1QpHab), though early editors, because of the difficulty in distinguishing between waw and yod in some manuscripts, sometimes read the Aramaic ‫והי‬- suffix as the Hebrew ‫יהו‬- (ehū), which is found in Biblical Hebrew on III-y nouns (e.g., ‫“ ָׂש ֵדהּו‬his field”) and in poetry.51 ‫הי‬- also shows up in 1QIsaa as the object suffix on perfect 3 pl. verbs (cf. Tiberian Hebrew ‫ּוהּו‬-), e.g., ‫“ ישאוהי על כתפ יסבלוהי ויניחוהי‬they must carry it on their backs, transport it and put it down” 1QIsaa 34:12 (‫ יִ ְס ְּב ֻלהּו‬. . . ‫ּכ ֵתף‬-‫ל‬ ָ ‫יִ ָש ֹ ֻאהּו ַע‬ ‫יחהּו‬ ֻ ִ‫ וְ יַ ּנ‬Isa 46:7).52 Kutscher believed that 1QIsaa evidences three examples of an Aramaic 3 fem. pl. perfect suffix ‫ה‬- (ā) as against the expected Hebrew suffix ‫ו‬- (ū): ‫“ והחזיקה שבע נשים‬seven women shall take hold” 1QIsaa 4:4 (‫וְ ֶה ֱחזִ יקּו ֶׁש ַבע נָ ִׁשים‬ Isa 4:1); ‫“ הצליחה דרכוהי‬his ways succeeded” 1QIsaa 40:20 (‫ וְ ִה ְצ ִל ַיח ַּד ְרּכֹו‬Isa 48:15); ‫ יצאה‬. . . ‫“ הרישונות‬the first things . . . went out” 1QIsaa 40:8 ‫ יָ ְצאּו‬. . . ‫ָה ִראׁשֹנֹת‬ (Isa 48:3).53 There are a few words in the Scrolls, primarily in 1QIsaa, that appear to reflect the Aramaic C-stem Hapʿel: ‫“ מהסיר‬remove” 1QIsaa 3:1 (‫ ֵמ ִסיר‬Isa 3:1); ‫“ ואוכלתי‬and I shall feed” 1QIsaa 41:27 (‫ וְ ַה ֲא ְכ ְל ִּתי‬Isa 49:26); ‫“ והוליכתי‬and I will lead” 1QIsaa 35:26 (‫הֹול ְכ ִּתי‬ ַ ְ‫ ו‬Isa 42:16), ‫“ ויהכין‬and he will prepare” 1QS 3:9.54 49  The he is unexpected. Strugnell, “Notes,” 226 reads here ‫לאדעתיכהי‬. See also n. 37 above. 50  Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 61; Abegg, “Linguistic Profile,” 34. See also n. 37 above. 51  See the discussion in J. Licht, The Rule Scroll: A Scroll from the Wilderness of Judaea. 1QS. 1QSa. 1QSb. Text, Introduction and Commentary (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1965), 44–45 [Hebrew]. On the difficulty of distinguishing waw from yod, see E. Qimron, “The Distinction between Waw and Yod in the Qumran Scrolls,” Beit Mikra (1972): 102–12 [Hebrew]. 52  Abegg, “Linguistic Profile,” 34. 53  For possible additional examples, see Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 191. 54  Ibid., 197–200.

The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls 17

It has been suggested that the use of G-stem verbal nouns and infinitives with prefixed mem, which is found in various Dead Sea Scrolls, is the result of Aramaic influence,55 e.g., ‫“ במתור‬seeking out” 1QS 3:3; also in the parallel text 4Q257); ‫“ למפתח‬to unlock” 1QS 10:4; ‫“ למשוב‬to repent” 1QS 3:1; ‫“ מתעב‬hating” 1QS 4:5; ‫“ למשוב‬to repent” 1QM 1:13; ‫“ בצאת ומבוא‬in leaving and entering” 4QShirShabbf [4Q405] 23 i 10. Some have viewed the masc. pl. suffix ‫ין‬- found in the Copper Scroll (3Q15) and occasionally in other Scrolls56 (and in Tannaitic Hebrew) as an Aramaism, though most nowadays consider it a phonological phenomenon: a shift of final m > n.57 8

Analysis of Data

The sketch presented above leaves no doubt that the scribe of 1QIsaa was heavily influenced by Aramaic and that other scribes were also influenced, though the manuscripts they wrote or copied show less evidence of it. It confirms what was known by the end of the 1950s, namely, that there is a significant difference in the amount of Aramaisms in 1QIsaa and other more carefully written, official-looking documents such as the Community Rule (1QS) and the Temple Scroll. One must keep in mind, however, that the picture of other biblical Scrolls may be distorted because of their fragmentary nature.58 Are the Aramaisms the result of a literary language, the vernacular, or a combination of both? The most obvious yardstick by which to begin to examine the Aramaisms in the Hebrew scrolls is the Aramaic corpus of manuscripts from Qumran.59 Yet, because the provenance and date of composition of many if not all of the Aramaic documents is far from certain60 and because the texts 55  Licht, Rule Scroll, 44. See also the remarks of Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 65. 56  Qimron, “Language of Temple Scroll,” 93–94. 57  See Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 27 for a discussion and additional bibliography. 58  See n. 36 above. 59  See the grammatical descriptions of Qumran Aramaic by K. Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer (3 vols.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984–2004); U. SchattnerRieser, L’araméen des manuscrits de la mer Morte. I. Grammaire (IELOA 5; Lausanne: Editions du Zébre, 2004) and T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Qumran Aramaic (ANESSup 38; Leuven: Peeters, 2011). 60  For an overview of the Aramaic corpus, see J. J. Collins, “The Aramaic Texts from Qumran: Conclusion,” in Aramaica Qumranica: Proceedings of the Conference on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran in Aix-en-Provence 30 June–2 July 2008 (ed. K. Berthelot and D. Stökl Ben Ezra; STDJ 94; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 547–64.

18

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are written in Standard Literary Aramaic and not in a vernacular like the BarKosibah letters, for these reasons it must be said that just because a feature may be found in an Aramaic Dead Sea Scroll does not necessarily mean that Qumran Aramaic is the source of the Aramaism. The alleged morphological Aramaisms are the most intriguing and surprising of all the data. As noted, morphological loans from one language to another are relatively rare. U. Weinreich noted that when they do occur they may not only be the result of cultural influence, but may also have been introduced into the recipient language to “replace zeros or phonemically less bulky forms.”61 Grammatical loans may be attested when the two languages are closely related, or usually when they are dialects of the same language: one of the parade examples is the borrowing of Scandinavian pronouns (Old Norse) beginning with th- (þeir “they,” þeim “them,” and þeirra “their”) into Old English displacing the corresponding h- forms (hie, him, and hira), presumably facilitated by the existence in Old English of th- demonstrative pronouns (including the definite article).62 Is the contact between Hebrew and Aramaic reflected in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls similar to the contact that might have enabled the borrowing of pronouns between Old Norse and Old English? See what Otto Jespersen says about Old Norse and Old English: An enormous number of words were then identical in the two languages, so that we should now have been utterly unable to tell which language they had come from if we had had no English literature before the invasion; nouns such as man, wife, father, folk, mother, house thing, life, sorrow, winter, summer, verbs like will, can, meet, come, bring, hear, see, think, smile, ride, stand, sit, set, spin, adjectives and adverbs like full, wise, well, better, best, mine and thine, over and under, etc. etc. The consequence was that an Englishman would have no great difficulty in understanding a Viking—nay, we have positive evidence that Norse people looked upon the English language as one with their own.63 Can one say that this was the case for Aramaic and Hebrew? Did not the Canaanite vowel and consonant shifts, as well as the distinctive Canaanite core vocabulary, create a divide with Aramaic that was considerably wider than that between Old Norse and Old English? Was a sentence such as ‫נפק גברא‬ 61  U. Weinreich, Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems (The Hague: Mouton, 1964), 33. 62  O. Jespersen, Growth and Structure of the English Language (10th ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 66; T. R. Lounsbury, History of the English Language (rev. and enl. ed.; New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1894), 266–67. 63  Jespersen, Growth and Structure, 60.

The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls 19

‫“ מן קריתא‬the man went out from the city” felt to be identical with ‫יצא האיש‬ ‫ ?מהעיר‬Were Hebrew and Aramaic mutually intelligible? It is interesting to

note that the redactors of the Mishnah clearly distinguished between Hebrew and Aramaic. There is no Mischsprache in the Mishnah: when the editors deal with Aramaic, they cite the sentence or paragraph in pure Aramaic. There is no general mixing of languages, even though there are isolated Aramaic words that appear in the Mishnaic text. A comparison with other Hebrew corpora that were heavily influenced by Aramaic is, I think, instructive. The first is Tannaitic Hebrew. Despite the considerable Aramaic influence on the language, which manifests itself in many different areas,64 it is by no means accepted by all that Aramaic penetrated the morphological structure of the language. Take, for example, the pronominal and the verbal systems. Grammatical features that have been attributed by scholars to Aramaic include the 2 masc. sg. independent pronoun ‫ ַא ְּת‬, the possessive suffixes 2 masc. sg. [āḵ] and 2 fem. sg. [īḵ], the second a-vowel of the Nitpaʿel stem, and the Paʿel stem.65 All of them, however, are explainable by internal Hebrew processes and are attested already in Classical Biblical Hebrew: ‫( ַא ְּת‬8× in MT), -āḵ (‫ א ָֹתְך‬,‫ ִא ָּתְך‬,‫ ִע ָּמְך‬,‫ ָּבְך‬,‫) ָלְך‬, -īḵ (,‫ ָח ִמיְך‬,‫ ָא ִחיְך‬,‫ ָא ִביְך‬,‫ִּפיְך‬ ‫) ְק ַט ְל ִּתיְך‬, and the final a-vowel of Hitpaʿal (e.g., ‫) ִה ְת ַאּנַ ף‬. The existence of parallel phenomena in Aramaic probably reinforced their use in Hebrew. Following Weinreich’s observation that grammatical borrowings tend to replace ambiguous forms, why would speakers of Tannaitic Hebrew borrow a form such as ‫ַא ְּת‬ for the 2 masc. sg. from Aramaic when it would create confusion in the system between the 2 masc. sg. and the 2 fem. sg. independent pronouns? Grammatical borrowings are usually motivated by the desire to eliminate obfuscation. A second corpus for comparison is the Hebrew Judean Desert documents from between the destruction of the Second Temple and the Second Revolt. Though the paradigms are not complete and the evidence is limited, I am not certain that there are clear Aramaisms in either the pronominal or verbal systems,66 64  For an extreme maximalist view, see I. Gluska, Hebrew and Aramaic in Contact during the Tannaitic Period: A Sociolinguistic Approach (Tel Aviv: Papirus, 1999) [Hebrew]. 65  M. Bar-Asher, L’hébreu mishnique: études linguistiques (Orbis Supplementa 11; Leuven: Peeters, 1999), 30–34. On the suffix –āḵ see also R. Steiner, “From Proto-Hebrew to Mishnaic Hebrew: The History of ‫ְך‬-ָ and ‫ּה‬-ָ ,” HAR 3 (1979): 157–74. 66  U. Mor, “The Grammar of the Epigraphic Hebrew Documents from Judaea between the First and the Second Revolts,” (Ph.D. diss., Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2009), 116–33, 143–46 [Hebrew]. Mor, at 132, cites one example of a possible 3 masc. pl. Aramaic suffix ‫הון‬- (‫ עליהון‬in P. Yadin 51:3), but the reading is far from certain. According to H. Gzella there is Aramaic influence, however, on the use of the Hebrew participle; see H. Gzella, “The Use of the Participle in the Bar Kosiba Letters in the Light of Aramaic,” DSD 14 (2007): 90–98; Gzella, “Elemente systemischen Sprachkontaktes in den

20

Fassberg

unless one views the shift of final m > n as proof, though it is currently believed by most to reflect an internal Hebrew development.67 Yet another case of intense Hebrew and Aramaic contact occurs in NeoAramaic as spoken today in Israel. Hebrew is the superstratum for all NeoAramaic speakers living in Israel, most of whom emigrated from Kurdistan in 1950–1951. And yet, the pronominal and verbal systems of all Neo-Aramaic dialects still spoken in Israel are impermeable to Hebrew morphological features. The lexicon is flooded with Modern Hebrew loans and scores of verbal roots, but the nouns and verbs are all inflected according to the grammatical rules of Neo-Aramaic, and the pronouns are direct internal Aramaic developments. Speakers of Jewish Neo-Aramaic often borrow pronouns and verbal inflections from other closely related Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects, but not from Hebrew. Speakers distinguish clearly between Hebrew and Neo-Aramaic; they borrow lexemes freely, but not morphological elements. The same is true for the Western Neo-Aramaic Christian dialects (Maʿlula, Baxʿa, and Jubbʿadin), which have been in contact with the superstratum of Arabic for over a millennium. The lexicon of Western Neo-Aramaic is heavily Arabicized, but the grammatical structure of the language remains entirely Aramaic. In the light of the relative rarity of morphological borrowings between languages,68 on the one hand, and the Hebrew-Aramaic bilingualism demonstrated in Tannaitic Hebrew, the Hebrew of the Judean Desert documents, and Jewish Neo-Aramaic, on the other, I question whether all the morphological phenomena that have been described as borrowings in the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls indeed are vernacular Aramaisms that penetrated the texts from the spoken language of the scribes. The 2 fem. sg. forms with final -ī are attested in Biblical Hebrew in all the categories in which they are attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls: the independent pronoun, the possessive suffix, and the object suffix. Kutscher called the pronominal elements with -ī in 1QIsaa a “mirage” form or “fata morgana,”69 i.e., although the 2 fem. sg. forms with yod looked like ancient Hebrew forms, hebräischen Bar-Kosiba-Briefen,” in “. . . der seine Lust hat am Wort des Herrn!”: Festschrift für Ernst Jenni zum 80. Geburtstag (ed. J. Luchsinger, H.-P. Mathys, and M. Saur; AOAT 336; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2007), 93–107. 67  On m > n, see, e.g., Bar-Asher, L’hébreu mishnique, 9. 68  For examples of morphological borrowings, see S. G. Thomason, Language Contact: An Introduction (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2001), 63–65; D. Winford, An Introduction to Contact Linguistics (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003), 56–58. 69  Kutscher, History of the Hebrew Language, 38; Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 25.

The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls 21

in reality they entered the Qumran texts from the Aramaic vernacular. Ben-Ḥayyim, in discussing Samaritan Hebrew, took the opposite view of the 2 fem. sg. forms with final -ī, arguing that the ancient Hebrew forms were ­maintained because of the Aramaic.70 I agree with Ben-Ḥayyim because I think Qumran scribes tended to lengthen artificially pronouns and other forms whenever possible in order to embellish the text (the independent pronouns ‫היאה‬, ‫אתמה‬, ‫הואה‬, the suffixes ‫כמה‬-, and ‫המה‬-, the adverbs ‫שמה‬, ‫מאדה‬, ‫)ריקמה‬.71 In the case of the 2 fem. sg. morphemes, I believe that here too Qumran scribes deliberately used the archaic or dialectal Hebrew forms since they were longer and felt to be more elegant than the regular classical forms, and also had the same syllable structure as the 2 masc. sg. forms (Cv̄#). The existence of the suffix in Aramaic reinforced the use of the older Hebrew forms.72 The orthography ‫והי‬- for the 3 masc. sg. pronominal suffix on pl. nouns and the object suffix is undeniably Aramaic. It occurs once in Biblical Hebrew ‫( תגמולוהי‬Ps 116:12), but on a word that occurs only in Second Temple Hebrew sources and itself may be an Aramaism.73 Ben-Ḥayyim considered the suffix ‫והי‬- in Qumran Hebrew texts to be an Aramaic orthography that reflected a realization of -o, similar to the contracted diphthong of Samaritan Aramaic,74 and a borrowing of Aramaic orthography.75 In the light of the contraction of the diphthong aw > o in the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ensuing homophony and graphic confusion between the 3 masc. sg. suffix on singular and plural nouns (‫ו‬- and ‫יו‬-), I would like to suggest that the use of ‫והי‬- was 70  Z. Ben-Ḥayyim, A Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 104 (perfect suffixes), and 225 (independent pronouns). Qimron, in his review of the Hebrew version of Ben-Ḥayyim’s grammar (see n. 47 above), agrees with Kutscher’s interpretation of the data (p. 365) as does generally Abegg, “Linguistic Preference,” 31, 33–34. 71  S. E. Fassberg, “The Preference for Lengthened Forms in Qumran Hebrew,” Meghillot 1 (2003): 227–40 [Hebrew]. 72  Two different 2 fem. sg. suffixes existed in Palestine. The orthographies of the suffix in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls ‫כי‬- and ‫יכי‬- (e.g., ‫ לכי‬1QapGen ar [1Q20] 19:19 but ,‫בטליכי‬ ‫ בדיליכי‬19:20) could reflect -eḵī, as in Official Aramaic, though Palestinian Aramaic also knows –īḵ, which is found in Targum Onqelos, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, and Samaritan Aramaic. See S. E. Fassberg, “The Pronominal Suffix of the Second Feminine Singular in the Aramaic Texts from the Judean Desert,” DSD 3 (1996): 10–19. 73  See Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 213; the Classical Biblical Hebrew noun is ‫גמול‬. 74  Written ‫יו‬- and ‫וי‬- in Samaritan Aramaic texts. 75  Z. Ben-Ḥayyim, Studies in the Traditions of the Hebrew Language (Madrid: Instituto Arias Montano, 1954), 90–92. Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 61 corrects Ben-Ḥayyim’s statement that ‫והי‬- was used on both singular and plural nouns: ‫והי‬- is restricted to plural nouns. See too Goshen-Gottstein, “Linguistic Structure,” 16–17.

22

Fassberg

merely another embellished form, a long marker of the 3 masc. sg. suffix -o, which served to distinguish plural nouns bound by the suffix from the homophonous singular nouns. The orthography ‫והי‬- was, as suggested by Ben-Ḥayyim, borrowed from Aramaic, but probably from Standard Literary Aramaic and not from the vernacular, in which there are signs that the he already began to fall out (‫“ אחוי‬his brother” 1QapGen [1Q20] 21:34; ‫“ עלוי‬on him” 11QNJ ar [11Q18] 8 3; 9 4),76 leaving -ūy and -oy, which may have further contracted to -o. Moreover, the use of the he agreed with the orthographic convention of adding that letter to final -o in spellings such as ‫ כוה‬1QIsaa 38:18 (‫ ּכֹה‬Isa 45:11); ‫“ ובחיקוה‬and in his bosom” 1QIsaa 30:11 (‫ ְּוב ֵחיקֹו‬Isa 33:11); ‫“ כוחוה‬his strength” 1QIsaa 37:17 (‫ ּכֹחֹו‬Isa 44:12); ‫“ רצונוה‬his desire” 4QJubd [4Q219] 2:29, 32; ‫“ אתוה‬his sign” 4QJubd [4Q219] 2:34; as well as the spelling ‫וה‬- found in Official Aramaic texts and once in Qumran Aramaic.77 With regard to ‫והי‬- as an object suffix (cf. Tiberian Hebrew [ūhū]), this orthography was probably realized as ū since the he may not have been pronounced and the diphthong ūy > ū/o as in ‫“ גלו‬revealed” 4QTest [4Q175] 11 = MT ‫)ּגְ לּוי‬. Here too the scribe of 1QIsaa seems to have merely adopted the literary Aramaic form. In the case of the 3 fem. pl., which is attested only in 1QIsaa, Aramaic influence may indeed be responsible, though later Palestinian Aramaic dialects (Jewish Palestinian ‫ ַק ְט ֵלין‬,78 Christian Palestinian ‫ܩܛܠܝ‬,79 and Samaritan ‫קטלי‬ qā�ṭā�li)80 show a suffix of -e/i and not -ā, the latter of which is attested in the qere of Biblical Aramaic (‫ ִא ְת ֲע ַק ָרו‬, ‫ נְ ַפ ָלו‬,‫ )נְ ַפ ָקו‬as well as in Targum Onqelos (‫) ְק ַט ָלא‬. The final -ā in 1QIsaa represented by ‫ה‬- may well be in imitation of Standard Literary Aramaic.81 76  See Schattner-Rieser, L’araméen, 59; Muraoka, Grammar of Qumran Aramaic, 40; cf. Syriac, where the pronoun was written with a he for historical reasons, even though it was ̄ = [aw]. no longer pronounced: ‫ܘܗܝ‬ 77  T. Muraoka and B. Porten, A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic (2nd rev. ed.; HdO 32; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 50; Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 61. The Qumran example is ‫נחירוה‬ “its nostrils” 11QtgJob [11Q10] 36:5. See Muraoka, Grammar of Qumran Aramaic, 40. 78  S. E. Fassberg, A Grammar of the Palestinian Targum Fragments from the Cairo Genizah (HSS 38; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 175–76, 179. 79  For the Christian Palestinian Aramaic evidence, see M. Bar-Asher, “Palestinian Syriac Studies: Source-Texts, Traditions and Grammatical Problems” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977), 325–26 [Hebrew]. 80  Z. Ben-Ḥayyim, The Recitation of Prayers and Hymns (vol. 3.2 of The Literary and Oral Tradition of Hebrew and Aramaic amongst the Samaritans; ed. Ben-Ḥayyim; Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1967), 147 [Hebrew]. 81  One finds ‫א‬- in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls: ‫“ שלמא‬they are/were perfect” 1QapGen [1Q20] 20:6, 22:28; ‫“ נסבא‬they took” 1QapGen [1Q20] 5:12; ‫“ הויה‬they were” 4QEnocha [4Q201] iii 16.

The Nature and Extent of Aramaisms in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls 23

The few examples of he in the C-stem are most certainly in imitation of a literary and not a vernacular Aramaic since he was often unpronounced in speech at Qumran, as can be seen by its occasional omission in writing.82 Is the addition of he in these C-stem verbs part of the same archaizing process that reinserts a he in the two proper nouns ‫ יהוחנן‬and ‫( יהוסף‬reinterpreted as a C-stem verb?) in Second Temple epigraphic sources?83 The 1QIsaa forms ‫אוכלתי‬ and ‫ הוליכתי‬are indisputably Aramaic. The existence of G-stem verbal nouns and infinitives with prefixed mem need not be attributed to Aramaic influence since the use of such noun patterns as infinitives is attested already in Classical Biblical Hebrew, e.g., ‫למקרא‬ ‫“ העדה ולמסע את המחנות‬to summon the community and to set the divisions in motion” (Num 10:2). 9 Conclusion Aramaic has left a heavy imprint on the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly 1QIsaa. Other documents show less influence and may lend support to S. Weitzman’s view that the Qumran community sought to write in the Holy Tongue and “transcend the mundane reality,”84 and to the antilanguage nature of Qumran Hebrew argued by W. Schniedewind,85 though one would have thought that the scribe of 1QIsaa would have wanted to preserve the ipsissima verba of God, as did other scribes of other biblical manuscripts. It must be borne in mind that the biblical manuscripts at Qumran with which one can compare 1QIsaa are fragmentary and so the more limited extent of Aramaic influence on different manuscripts may be an optical illusion. Among nonbiblical manuscripts, the Community Rule (1QS) has a number of Aramaisms; 4QTest [4Q175] should also be singled out since, relative to its size, there are several Aramaic-looking features.86 This is not surprising since both manuscripts were copied by the same scribe.87

82  Abegg, “Linguistic Profile,” 29. 83  For a discussion of these names and bibliography, see D. Talshir, “Rabbinic Hebrew as Reflected in Personal Names,” ScrHier 37 (1998): 365–79. 84  S. Weitzman, “Why Did the Qumran Community Write in Hebrew?” JAOS 119 (1999): 35–45, at 45. 85  W. M. Schniedewind, “Qumran Hebrew as an Antilanguage,” JBL 118 (1999): 235–52, esp. 235. 86  See n. 37 above. 87  Cross, “Testimonia,” 308.

24

Fassberg

Lexical, phonological, and semantic borrowings occur in varying degrees in different manuscripts according to the official nature of the document and the skill of its scribe. No doubt conservative orthography and a desire to write Hebrew hide additional forms. Of the alleged morphological loans, two occur in more scrolls than just 1QIsaa: the 2 fem. sg. pronominal elements with final [ī] and the 3 masc. sg. suffix ‫והי‬- on plural nouns and as an object suffix. In the light of the general infrequency of morphological loans from one language into another, even those in close contact, I suggest that these and other morphological-looking borrowings are not loans in Hebrew from a spoken Aramaic. In the case of the 2 fem. sg. forms, they are old Hebrew forms that have been exploited because they are attested in literary Aramaic and because they embellish the text. I think the morphological borrowing of ‫והי‬- is also probably from Standard Literary Aramaic, and it reflects the general desire of Qumran scribes to lengthen forms in order to raise the register of the language.88 Do we really know what the Aramaic of the scribes sounded like?89 After all, we possess only literary texts, and judging from later Palestinian Aramaic, it looked considerably different.

88  Cross, ibid., 308–9, calls the orthography “baroque” and the forms “archaic and pseudoarchaic literary forms.” 89  See Greenfield, “Standard Literary Aramaic,” 281.

The Tiberian Vocalization and the Hebrew of the Second Temple Period Jan Joosten 1 Introduction While the Tiberian system of vocalization was developed only in the Middle Ages, the information encoded in the Tiberian vowels added to the Masoretic text is probably considerably older.1 Some past and present Hebraists tend to view the Masoretes themselves as the ones who created the vocalization on the basis of their general knowledge of Hebrew and the Biblical text.2 Most specialists agree, however, that the Tiberian Masoretes based their vocalization on an oral reading tradition stretching back to the time when some form of Hebrew was still a living language.3 The Tiberian vocalization preserves a host of features that could not be derived from the consonantal text, and nevertheless appear to represent genuine linguistic features of Hebrew: – The distinction between shin and sin is not one of vocalization, but the point distinguishing them was introduced at the same time as the vowels. In some cases, Hebrew sin may have been selected so as to accord with a samek in Aramaic, but the letter also occurs in many words not attested in that language (e.g., ‫“ חשף‬to strip off,” ‫“ נגש‬to press, drive,” ‫“ רמש‬to creep”). Comparative grammar shows that it is almost always correctly used in these instances as well.4 – The difference between infinitive construct (‫ ) ֱאכֹל‬and infinitive absolute (‫ ) ָאכֹל‬is for most verbs a matter of vocalization only. The distinction 1  See S. Schorch, Die Vokale des Gesetzes: Die samaritanische Lesetradition als Textzeugin der Tora, I: Das Buch Genesis (BZAW 339; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 1–10. 2  See, e.g., P. Kahle, “Die überlieferte Aussprache des Hebräischen und die Punktation der Masoreten,” ZAW 39 (1921): 220–39; R. Bartelmus, Einführung in das Biblische Hebräisch (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1994), 20–22. 3  See the recent review of the evidence in G. A. Khan, A Short Introduction to the Tiberian Masoretic Bible and its Reading Tradition (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2012), in particular 46–48. 4  See R. Steiner, “Addenda to The Case for Fricative Laterals,” in Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau on the Occasion of his 85th Birthday (ed. A. S. Kaye; Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1991), 2:1499–1514, in particular 1501–4 (where earlier literature is discussed).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004299313_004

26

Joosten

is not attested in the same way in Arabic, Aramaic, or Rabbinic Hebrew. Nevertheless, the Masoretes get the morphology right in practically all cases. – The distinction between long and short forms in the prefix conjugation of middle weak verbs or in the Hiphil of strong verbs is another subtlety that could not be derived from Aramaic, Arabic, or Rabbinic Hebrew. Admittedly, it is often in accord with the consonantal spelling—the long form being written with a mater lectionis (‫)יַ ְפ ִקיד‬, the short form without (‫)יַ ְפ ֵקד‬. Yet the vocalization does not blindly follow the spelling. Long forms written defectively are almost always correctly pointed by the Masoretes.5 These features, and many others, can hardly have been “reconstructed” by the Masoretes on the basis of their knowledge of comparative Semitics. They must reflect an oral tradition going back to an age when the biblical idiom was still known at least to some.6 The present study will focus on some parallels and connections between Tiberian Hebrew and different varieties of Hebrew from the Second Temple period. 2

Methodological Remarks

It is not easy to compare Tiberian Hebrew, expressed as it is in the vowel pointing, with unvocalized texts produced in the Second Temple period and earlier. Even apart from the essential incommensurability of the data, the undertaking seems daunting: Second Temple Hebrew is not a unified language, but a collection of corpora exhibiting a wide variety of linguistic forms. The language of the main sectarian scrolls from Qumran differs along dialectal lines from the Hebrew of Ben Sira, and differs again from what transpires from transcriptions of Hebrew words in the Septuagint. In addition, there are problems of attestation: some of the documents are known from old manuscripts, while others 5  See, e.g., Deut 29:22; Judg 20:16; 1 Sam 20:13, 23:22; Isa 44:28; Jer 13:16, 32:5; Ezek 46:18; Mal 3:11. An exception would be ‫ ותינק‬in Exod 2:7, where one expects a short form. 6  In his dissertation, Uri Mor has recently defended the view that the period between the Jewish wars is the one when Hebrew died out as a living language; see U. Mor, “The Grammar of the Epigraphic Hebrew Documents from Judaea between the First and the Second Revolts” (Ph.D. diss., Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2009). Note, however, that Steven Fassberg has recently enumerated some arguments for the view that Hebrew remained a spoken language in Palestine until much later; see S. Fassberg, “Which Semitic Language Did Jesus and Other Contemporary Jews Speak,” CBQ 74 (2012): 263–80, in particular 275–78.

The Tiberian Vocalization & the Hebrew of the 2nd Temple Period

27

have been transmitted through a textual tradition that can only partially be retraced. How can a linguist operate with such disparate materials? In dealing with these thorny questions it is important to keep an eye on the objective of the inquiry. The point at issue presently is the problem of the antiquity of the oral tradition leading up to the Tiberian vocalization. This issue can be discussed without having recourse to fine-grained dialectological analyses. What is of interest is not the location of Tiberian Hebrew on the dialectal spectrum of the Second Temple period, but the temporal anchoring of the tradition it represents. The perspective is historical. The question at issue is whether it is possible to find diachronic markers defining the time span when the Tiberian tradition originated. Some linguistic features spring up and die out in Hebrew at approximately datable periods. If such features can be identified in Tiberian Hebrew it will be possible to cast light on our problem. 3

Reinterpretation of Forgotten Words and Forms

A first category of promising features is that of forgotten words and forms. The history of Hebrew is a very long one, and many words were forgotten over time—although sometimes their meaning could later be recovered through close philological study. The phenomenon of forgotten words cannot usually be exploited in diachronic perspective: it is hard to know when the meaning of a word fell into oblivion. In a few cases, however, words that had fallen from use were then reinterpreted and used in a new meaning. The attestation of such (pseudo-classical) reinterpretation can at times be dated at least approximately. Where the reinterpretation turns up in the Tiberian pointing, it can become a diagnostic feature in the sense defined above. A well-known example of this phenomenon is the noun ‫ ַצ ְל ָמוֶ ת‬.7 In the Hebrew Bible, this word occurs only in poetical texts, almost always in combination with words like ‫ חשך‬or ‫ אפל‬meaning “darkness.” Its general meaning is not in doubt. But its precise interpretation has been the object of debate. According to the Tiberian vocalization (as well as the Babylonian: ṣilmâwät),8 ‫ ַצ ְל ָמוֶ ת‬is a composite word consisting of ‫“ צל‬shadow” and ‫“ מות‬death.” The

7  See C. Cohen, “The Meaning of ‫‘ צלמות‬Darkness’: A Study in Philological Method,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran (ed. M. V. Fox; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 287–309. 8  See I. Yeivin, The Hebrew Language Tradition as Reflected in the Babylonian Vocalization (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1985), 2:812.

28

Joosten

Mekilta explains: “‫( מהו צלמות‬in ref. to Jer 2:6)? ‫מקום צל ועמו מות‬.”9 This etymology is endorsed in the lexical works of Ibn Janah and David Qimhi. By their time a derivation from the root ‫“ צלם‬to be dark”—rare in Hebrew but well-known in Arabic—had been envisaged. But Ibn Janah and Qimhi argued that the pointing doesn’t allow this connection.10 Eight hundred years later, Wilhelm Gesenius still held on to this traditional point of view. In the Thesaurus the word is listed under the root ‫צלל‬, with the express indication that it is a composite.11 By his time, however, critical scholars had found a way to overcome the problem of the vocalization. According to Johann Michaëlis, the noun should simply be repointed. It might originally have been pronounced ṣalmût (or ṣalmôt, or ṣallamût).12 Over the last two hundred years, most knowledgeable scholars have adopted this opinion. Recent dictionaries agree in deriving the word from the root ‫צלם‬.13 A major argument in favor of this view is that Hebrew has very few genuine composites.14 Alleged parallels such as ‫ עזמות‬and ‫ חצרמות‬are proper nouns and as such should not be used to explain a common noun. Moreover, the Ugaritic texts have provided a precise cognate in the word ẓlmt “darkness”—incidentally confirming the non-consonantal status of the waw in the Hebrew word.15 The upshot of these considerations is that the precise meaning of the poetic word ‫צלמות‬, originally pronounced ṣalmût or something similar, was, at some point in the history of Hebrew, forgotten and subsequently reinterpreted according to a type of “folk etymology” entailing a different pronunciation. It appears that the change from the original noun to the reinterpreted pseudocomposite can be dated approximately. The biblical occurrences, all reflecting the original usage of the word, take us down to the sixth century—note especially Jer 2:6 and 13:16.16 The reinterpretation, for its part, is clearly attested in the standard Septuagint rendering of the word as σκιὰ θανάτου “shadow 9   H. S. Horovitz and I. A. Rabin, eds., Mechilta d’Rabbi Ismael (Breslau, 1930; repr., Jerusalem: Shalem, 1997), 54. 10  Ibn Janah, Book of Hebrew Roots (ed. A. Neubauer; Oxford: Clarendon, 1875), 611; D. Qimhi, Sefer hashorashim (ed. J. H. R. Biesenthal and F. Liebrecht; Berlin: Friedländer, 1847), 313. 11  Gesenius, Thesaurus, 3:1169. 12  Cited in W. Gesenius, Hebräisch–deutsches Handwörterbuch (2 vols.; Leipzig: Vogel, 1810– 1812), 2:974. 13  Thus HAL, HAHAT (but not DCH). 14  The only real exception is ‫ ֶׁשנְ ַה ִּבים‬in 1 Kgs 10:22 and parallel. 15  For more details and secondary literature, see the study by Chaim Cohen cited above in n. 7. 16  Some exegetes are of the opinion that the occurrences of the word in Ps 44:20 and 107:10, 14 are very late. It is hard to attain certainty in these matters.

The Tiberian Vocalization & the Hebrew of the 2nd Temple Period

29

of death.”17 Thus the reinterpretation must have occurred between the sixth and the second century BCE. It is a reasonable hypothesis to say that the word fell into oblivion because of the disruption caused by the Judaean exile. The Tiberian vocalization reflects the later form and appears to hark back to this period.18 Another, equally famous example is the noun ‫יפח‬/‫ יפיח‬meaning “witness,” pointed almost everywhere as if it were a form of the verb ‫“ פוח‬to blow.” In this case the correct meaning of the word was retrieved only in the twentieth century after the discovery of Ugaritic.19 Otherwise, the history of this word is comparable to that of ‫צלמות‬: while the word is still used correctly by Habakkuk, at the very end of the seventh century, by the time of the Septuagint translators its meaning is completely forgotten. In the Greek version, the word is generally interpreted as a finite verb, exactly as in the MT. These examples show, rather persuasively, that elements of the Tiberian vocalization were stabilized during the Second Temple period. 4

Grammatical Modernizations

A number of grammatical modernizations also indicate a connection between Tiberian Hebrew and the Second Temple period. Like words, grammatical forms and constructions fell into disuse over the long existence of the Hebrew language, while others arose in their place. Just as in the case of the forgotten words discussed above, some old grammatical features were later misunderstood and analyzed differently. In some instances, this reanalysis shows up in the vocalization. The old Hebrew morphology presupposed by the consonantal text is overlaid by a more recent system. Although grammatical modernizations may affect single forms, they more typically concern groups of instances, thus strengthening the case.

17  This is the standard rendering everywhere except in the book of Job, where other equivalents are found as well. 18  For completeness’ sake it should be signaled that the word is attested once with context in the Qumran Scrolls: ‫“ וישוכו בעדי בצלמות‬They hedged about me with utter darkness” (1QHa 13:35). It is difficult to know from this sole occurrence how the author of the Hodayot would explain the word, let alone how he would vocalize it. Without context the word is found in 4Q509 189 3. In later Hebrew, the word is, unless I err, used only in reference to the biblical text. 19  See D. Pardee, “Ypḥ ‘witness’ in Hebrew and Ugaritic,” VT 28 (1978): 204–13.

30

Joosten

Several examples of possible grammatical modernization have been pointed out by various scholars, first Mayer Lambert, and after him H. L. Ginsberg, Elisha Qimron, Jeremy Hughes, David Talshir, and no doubt others.20 Some of these authors, such as Lambert and Ginsberg, loosely speak of “Rabbinic Hebrew” influence on the Masoretic pointing. But the discoveries of the Qumran texts and subsequent research on Second Temple Hebrew show that many of the later features underlying the vocalization existed already in the Second Temple period.21 Two case studies will illustrate this point. 4.1 The Use of WEYIQTOL instead of WEQATAL with pe-yod verbs In classical Hebrew prose, the two syntagms we + prefix conjugation and we + suffix conjugation (WEQATAL) are usually kept apart: the first expresses volition (or “light subordination”)22 and teams up with the cohortative, imperative, and jussive, while the second expresses more general futurity and interacts with clause-internal YIQTOL (the long form of the prefix conjugation). In other words, we + prefix conjugation essentially, in classical prose, represents we + jussive. The meanings and functions of the jussive are close to those of WEQATAL, but they are not identical.23

20  M. Lambert, “Le waw conversif,” REJ 26 (1883): 47–62; Lambert, “L’emploi du Nifal en hébreu,” REJ 41 (1900), 196–214; H. L. Ginsberg, “‫מבעד למסורת‬,” Tarbiz 5 (1934–35): 208–23 and Tarbiz 6 (1935–36): 543; J. Hughes, “Post-Biblical Features of Biblical Hebrew Vocalization,” in Language, Theology, and the Bible: Essays in Honour of James Barr (ed. S. E. Balentine and J. Barton; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 67–80; E. Qimron, “‫על מסורת הלשון של סופרי המקרא‬,” Hadassah Shy Jubilee Book (ed. Y. Bentolila; Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1997), 37–43; D. Talshir, “‫אחות בלשון רבים ועדות בלשון יחיד בעברית העתיקה‬,” in Samaritan, Hebrew and Aramaic Studies Presented to Professor Abraham Tal (ed. M. BarAsher and M. Florentin; Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2005), 159–75. See now also Khan, Short Introduction, 48–50. 21  In a recent study on the form ‫ זְ ִמרֹות‬in Biblical Hebrew, Noam Mizrahi has expressly established a link between the grammatical modernizations in the Tiberian vocalization and Second Temple Hebrew; see N. Mizrahi, “Colliding Traditions in Biblical Hebrew in Historical Linguistic Perspective,” in ISRAEL: Linguistic Studies in the Memory of Israel Yeivin (ed. R. I. Zer and Y. Ofer; Jerusalem: Hebrew University Bible Project, 2011), 341–54, xxviii [Hebrew, with English abstract]. 22  JM §116, “Indirect volitive moods.” 23  See J. Joosten, “Textual Developments and Historical Linguistics,” in After Qumran: Old and Modern Editions of the Biblical Texts—The Historical Books (ed. H. Ausloos, B. Lemmelijn, and J. Trebolle Barrera; BETL 246; Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 21–31; in more detail, Joosten, The Verbal System of Biblical Hebrew: A New Synthesis Elaborated on the Basis of Classical Prose (Jerusalem: Simor, 2012).

The Tiberian Vocalization & the Hebrew of the 2nd Temple Period

31

This state of affairs raises doubts as to the vocalization of the form weyira‌ʾu in the following formulaic passages: Deut 17:13

‫ל־ה ָעם יִ ְׁש ְמעּו וְ יִ ָראּו וְ לֹא יְ זִ ידּון עֹוד‬ ָ ‫וְ ָכ‬

All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not act presumptuously again. Deut 19:20

‫וְ ַהּנִ ְׁש ָא ִרים יִ ְׁש ְמעּו וְ יִ ָראּו וְ לֹא־י ִֹספּו ַל ֲעׂשֹות עֹוד ַּכ ָּד ָבר ָה ָרע ַהּזֶ ה‬

The rest shall hear and be afraid, and a crime such as this shall never again be committed. Deut 21:21

‫ּוב ַע ְר ָּת ָה ָרע ִמ ִּק ְר ֶּבָך וְ ָכל־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל יִ ְׁש ְמעּו וְ יִ ָראּו‬ ִ

So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear and be afraid. The use of clause-internal YIQTOL in the first clause, would lead one to expect a WEQATAL form in the second clause. Functionally, none of the usual meanings of we + jussive fits the passages well: one should hardly attribute a volitive (“and may they be afraid”) or telic (“so that they may be afraid”) nuance to the second clause. These considerations may seem somewhat subjective, but they can be backed up by two more structural observations. Firstly, the cases enumerated (to which Deut 13:12 is to be added, see below) are practically the only cases of we + prefix conjugation in the Deuteronomic Code.24 The legislative style has no place for volitive forms. Secondly, in the one instance where the Deuteronomic formula is varied in a way that puts a different verb in the second slot, WEQATAL is used instead of we + prefix conjugation: Deut 31:13

‫יכם‬ ֶ ‫ֹלה‬ ֵ ‫יהם ֲא ֶׁשר לֹא־יָ ְדעּו יִ ְׁש ְמעּו וְ ָל ְמדּו ְליִ ְר ָאה ֶאת־יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬ ֶ ֵ‫ּובנ‬ ְ

24  The exceptions occur in quoted direct discourse: Deut 13:3, 7, 14; 20:5, 6, 7, 8; and in a motivation clause Deut 16:19.

32

Joosten

Their children, who have not known it, will hear and learn to fear the Lord your God. What all this leads up to is that instead of we + prefix conjugation, the original text of Deuteronomy was intended to be read as WEQATAL in all these passages: ‫וְ יָ ְראּו‬. It appears that in the later reading tradition, the form was adapted to the syntax of post-classical Hebrew in which we + YIQTOL is regularly used in legislative discourse, as is indeed the norm in Qumran Hebrew.25 First-yod verbs have the particularity that the consonantal shape of third person forms is the same for the prefix conjugation as for the suffix conjugation. This made it possible to read WEQATAL as we + YIQTOL.26 It is hard to say when the change in the reading tradition, from WEQATAL to we + YIQTOL, was made. Non-volitive we + YIQTOL is found already in the later biblical books,27 and is still frequent in Mishnaic Hebrew. An indication as to the relatively high date of the change is that in one or two passages, it shows up in the consonantal text as well: Deut 13:12

‫וְ ָכל־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל יִ ְׁש ְמעּו וְ יִ ָראּון‬

All Israel will hear and be afraid. Although the paragogic nun is attached to the suffix conjugation once or twice,28 it typically features with the long form of the suffix conjugation.29 The addition of the nun in ‫ וְ יִ ָראּון‬suggests, therefore, that the form was already read as a prefixed form.30 Similar considerations can be made in regard to another 25  See, e.g., 1QS 6:1–2: ‫באלה יתהלכו בכול מגוריהם כול הנמצא איש את רעהו וישמעו הקטן‬ ‫“ לגדול למלאכה ולממון‬By these rules they are to govern themselves wherever they dwell, in accordance with each legal finding that bears upon communal life. Inferiors must obey their ranking superiors as regards work and wealth.” 26  The same phenomenon affects the Samaritan Pentateuch more systematically, see Joosten, “Textual developments,” 26–27. 27  See Ezek 12:25; 14:7; 27:30; 40:42. For a full list of occurrences, see Joosten, Verbal System, 308–11. 28  JM § 42f (Deut 8:3, 16; Isa 26:16). 29  See W. R. Garr, “The Paragogic nun in Rhetorical Perspective,” in Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives (ed. S. E. Fassberg and A. Hurvitz; Jerusalem: Magnes, 2006), 65–74. 30  The Samaritan Pentateuch does not attest the paragogic nun in this passage. Omission of paragogic nun is a normal phenomenon in this textual witness.

The Tiberian Vocalization & the Hebrew of the 2nd Temple Period

33

attestation of we + YIQTOL of the same verb even although it does not occur in the same formula: Deut 2:4

‫י־ע ָׂשו ַהּי ְֹׁש ִבים ְּב ֵׂש ִעיר וְ יִ ְיראּו ִמ ֶּכם‬ ֵ ֵ‫יכם ְּבנ‬ ֶ ‫ַא ֶּתם ע ְֹב ִרים ִּבגְ בּול ֲא ֵח‬

You are about to pass through the territory of your kindred, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you. Here too, one expects the WEQATAL form ‫וְ יָ ְראּו‬. The pointing probably reflects secondary adaptation to later syntax. And here, too, the consonantal text concurs with the pointing.31 The fact that the reading of the forms as prefix conjugation shows up in the consonantal text tends to indicate that the putative change from WEQATAL to we + YIQTOL came about in the Second Temple period. 4.2 The Shortening of YIQTOL when it is Preceded by waw Another case of grammatical modernization allowing a good handle on the diachronic question is the following. As Elisha Qimron has shown, Late Biblical and Qumran Hebrew tend to use the long and short forms of the prefix conjugation as syntactically conditioned allomorphs—the long form being used in clause-internal position, the short form at the head of the clause, particularly with waw:32 Dan 11:4

‫ּוכ ָע ְמדֹו ִּת ָּׁש ֵבר ַמ ְלכּותֹו וְ ֵת ָחץ ְל ַא ְר ַּבע רּוחֹות ַה ָּׁש ָמיִ ם‬ ְ

And while still rising in power, his kingdom shall be broken and divided toward the four winds of heaven. The reason for the use of the short form ‫ וְ ֵת ָחץ‬is not that the meaning is jussive—it isn’t—, but simply that the form occurs at the head of the clause following waw. The meaning of short and long forms is, in LBH, the same: both may be used over a wide range of predictive and modal statements. The LBH system is 31  In 4QDeuth [4Q35], the form is written with one yod: ‫ויראו‬. In the Samaritan Pentateuch, the form is written with two yods in all passages: Deut 2:4; 13:12; 17:13; 19:20; 21:21. 32  See E. Qimron, “Consecutive and Conjunctive Imperfect: the Form of the Imperfect with Waw in Biblical Hebrew,” JQR 77 (1987): 149–61, esp. 151–53.

34

Joosten

superficially similar to that of Classical Hebrew, where long and short forms tend to occur in the same syntactic positions, but in CBH the forms do in fact express distinct functions: the imperfect is used in predictive discourse, whereas the jussive expresses volition or “light subordination.” In a context like that of Dan 11:4, Classical Hebrew would not have used the jussive but WEQATAL. LBH grammar has affected the pointing of CBH texts in a few places where a long form has been shortened due to the prefixed waw: Exod 19:3

‫אמר ְל ֵבית יַ ֲעקֹב וְ ַתּגֵ יד ִל ְבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ַ ֹ ‫ּכֹה ת‬

Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel. In this example, the second imperfect form does not have a jussive meaning. According to the CBH system, the form should therefore be read wetaggîd, as is confirmed by the consonantal orthography.33 The form is to be regarded as a normal imperfect.34 It was mechanically vocalized as a jussive according to the LBH system, because it was preceded by waw.35 If this explanation is correct, the vocalization of we + prefix conjugation as a short form in Exod 19:3 can only be attributed to Second Temple times. It accords with the syntax of LBH and Qumran Hebrew, but in later Hebrew the short form became obsolete. 5

Tiberian Hebrew and the Second Temple Period

The lexical and grammatical features inspected above show rather clearly that elements of the Tiberian vocalization hail back to the Second Temple period. By itself this is an interesting insight, establishing at once the great antiquity of the tradition on which the Masoretes based their work, and the secondary nature of some of the features this tradition incorporates. 33  Note also that CBH does not use the jussive in the second person except following the negation ʾal: the second person volitive is the imperative. 34  For the syntax of the passage, see J. Joosten, “A Neglected Rule and Its Exceptions: On NonVolitive yiqtol in Clause-Initial Position,” in Ἐν πάσῃ γραμματικῇ καὶ σοφίᾳ: Saggi di linguistica ebraica in onore di Alviero Niccacci, ofm (ed. G. Geiger; Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 2011), 213–19. 35  Thus also in Mic 3:4; 6:14; Ps 85:14 (but not in Amos 9:10).

The Tiberian Vocalization & the Hebrew of the 2nd Temple Period

35

It would be tempting to generalize this conclusion and situate the origin of the entire reading tradition leading up to the Tiberian vocalization, and the linguistic knowledge it incorporates, in this period. The time of the Second Temple is the period to which our earliest biblical manuscripts belong, the period when the biblical text became the object of intense study and commentary, the period in which we first hear of public reading of the Bible. One could easily imagine that this is also the time when more or less fixed reading traditions were established.36 Nevertheless, such a conclusion would be essentially misguided. As clear as the fact that some features of the Tiberian vocalization first emerged during the Second Temple period is the fact that precisely those features are late and secondary. Reinterpreted words and grammatical modernizations are characteristic items of Tiberian Hebrew, yet they are also exceptions proving the rule. For every “forgotten word” re-vocalized according to late exegesis, Tiberian Hebrew relays innumerable old words whose morphological shape is transmitted correctly. For every construction overlaid by later grammatical rules, there are many constructions of classical Hebrew that are faithfully reproduced in the Masoretic tradition. The stream of tradition that issued in the Tiberian vowels underwent important changes in the Second Temple period, but it goes back much further. Precisely how much further is a question that cannot be addressed in the present context.37 An entirely different issue is whether the alterations introduced during the Second Temple period were the last ones that affected the reading tradition inherited by the Tiberian Masoretes. There is no reason of principle to exclude the possibility that similar changes came about even later in the stream of tradition, in late antiquity or during the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, one should be cautious in postulating such changes. Paul Kahle famously attempted, during the 1920s and 1930s, to identify a number of late—and, in his view, artificial— 36  Stefan Schorch has tried to define more precisely the period when oral reading traditions of the biblical text crystallized. On the basis of an array of evidence, some of it rather loosely connected to the issue, he argues for the end of the second and the beginning of the first century BCE as the most likely period when fixed reading traditions may have been established. See Schorch, Vokale des Gesetzes, 56–60. 37  A few cases may be found where an opposition between CBH and LBH is expressed solely in the vocalization. Such cases seem to indicate that the vocalization of CBH texts was transmitted faithfully all the way down from pre-exilic times. See for the time being S. Morag, “On the Historical Validity of the Vocalization of the Hebrew Bible,” JAOS 94 (1974): 307–15; D. Boyarin, “Towards the Talmudic Lexicon IV,” in Te‘uda VI: Studies in Hebrew and Arabic in Memory of Dov Eron (ed. Aron Dotan; Tel Aviv: University Publishing, 1988), 63–75, in particular 63–64.

36

Joosten

features in the Tiberian vocalization, only to be proved spectacularly wrong by subsequent discoveries.38 Until someone brings new and better evidence, the existence of post-Second Temple features in Tiberian Hebrew will remain a mere theoretical possibility. 6 Conclusions To non-specialists the idea of an oral tradition accurately transmitting linguistic information over a millennium or more is hard to envisage. Hebrew scholars have had to adjust their critical acumen to this idea, however, because so many facts support it. Not only Tiberian Hebrew, but other traditions as well—the Babylonian vocalization, the Samaritan reading tradition—appear to link up with genuine varieties of the language from a period when it was still spoken. Of all the vocalization systems, the Tiberian is the most extensively preserved. The evidence examined in the present paper indicates that the information it transmits is of very high quality. Although it incorporates some manifestly secondary features, the most striking of these arguably go back to the Second Temple period. Since the secondary features are to be qualified as exceptions proving the rule, much else in the Tiberian tradition would appear to be even older. The Hebrew Bible hasn’t come to us in autographs, dug up recently in archeological excavations. It has been mediated by a century-long tradition. Although the consonants and the vocalization of this text have travelled partly along distinct itineraries, our basic attitude to them should be similar. Textual critics, exegetes, and grammarians need to adopt a critical attitude toward both the consonantal text and the vocalization: to confront variant traditions and to be prepared to admit that even when only one text form is attested it might be secondary. They also need to respect the tradition, however, and to realize to what extraordinary extent it faithfully transmits information coming to us from the mists of time.

38  See the review of the question in L. L. Grabbe, Comparative Philology and the Text of Job: A Study in Methodology (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977), 179–97.

Priests of Qoreb: Linguistic Enigma and Social Code in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice Noam Mizrahi Introduction The liturgical composition known as the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice is one of the most enigmatic works discovered among the Dead Sea scrolls. To be sure, its state of preservation is considerably better than that of many other works, due to the presence of nine or ten copies; fragmentary as they are, they overlap in many passages, a fact that allowed Carol Newsom to reconstruct much of the work in her admirable edition.1 This reconstruction enabled her and subsequent scholars to account for the literary structure of the work as being composed of thirteen songs, and to expose its somewhat esoteric or even mystical contents. The most baffling aspect of the Songs, however, remains its language. Although its entire inventory of lexical items and grammatical forms is attested elsewhere in QH or other corpora,2 in this composition they are boldly combined into unique phrases and seemingly wild syntactic constructions that are often so exceptional as to verge on unintelligible. A reader may be relieved to at last encounter a clause with what appears to be a comprehensive 1  The manuscripts are generally quoted according to the following editions: C. Newsom, DJD 11:173–401, pl. xvi–xxxi; F. García Martínez, E. J. C. Tigchelaar, and A. S. van der Woude, DJD 23:259–304, pl. xxx–xxxiv. I have also consulted the preliminary edition of C. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (HSS 27; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985). A new composite edition is that of E. Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2010–2015), 2:358–84 [Hebrew]. 2  Hebrew corpora are abbreviated throughout this paper as follows: BH = Biblical Hebrew, divided to classical (CBH) and late (LBH) phases; QH = Qumran Hebrew; MH = Mishnaic Hebrew, referring especially to the language used by the early Rabbis, the Tannaim. LBH, QH, and MH comprise the main literary corpora that testify to Second Temple Hebrew, although it is acknowledged that they do not completely overlap in terms of their exact time, literary status, or social register. Quotations from rabbinic literature are taken from Ma⁠ʾagarim, the online database of the Historical Dictionary of the Academy of Hebrew Language (http:// hebrew-treasures.huji.ac.il/), with references to the standard editions of the rabbinic works cited. Translations from the Hebrew Bible take their cue from the NRSV, but with many modifications. Other translations are my own, unless noted otherwise.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004299313_005

38

Mizrahi

structure, only to discover within it a new riddle that reduces understanding to speculation. The following discussion focuses on one such mystery, which, to my mind, has not been addressed in a satisfactory way: the meaning of the collocation ‫כוהני קורב‬, which appears at least six times in three different Songs.3 Both the consistent use of this construct phrase and its distribution throughout the work indicate that it belongs to the core phraseology of the Songs and stems from the essential ideology encoded therein. Admittedly, the nomen regens (‫כוהני־‬, “priests of . . .”) is a well-known lexeme, amply recorded throughout the history of Hebrew, but the nomen rectum (‫ )קורב‬is anything but transparent from a semantic point of view, and it requires close linguistic analysis and detailed exegesis. 1

Primary Evidence

An overview of the actual contexts in which the collocation is embedded allows one to sketch a preliminary, cotextual definition of its usage.4 Since the grammatical form of the word spelled ‫ קורב‬is to be considered unknown at this initial stage of the inquiry, it will be rendered by its orthographical representation, i.e., ‹QWRB›. Song I: (1) [‫( ֯כוה[ני] קורב משרתי פני מלך קודש [קודשים‬4Q400 1 i 8 || 4Q401 15 3ʹ) Priests of ‹QWRB›, servants of the presence of the [most] holy King (2) ‫[ דעת בכוהני קורב ומפיהם הורות כול קדושים‬. . .] (4Q400 1 i 17) [. . .] Knowledge is among the priests of ‹QWRB›, and by their mouth is the teaching of all the holy ones. (3) ‫( יסד לו כוהני קורב קדושי קדושים‬4Q400 1 i 19) He had established for himself the priests of ‹QWRB›, the holiest among the holy ones. Song VIII: (4)  ‫פלא‬ ֯ ‫( שניים בכוהני קורב סוד שני במעון‬4Q403 1 ii 19 || 4Q405 8–9 [= col. E] 2–3) 3  For the time being it is also unique to the Songs, as no parallel to it has been detected in other Hebrew or Aramaic sources. 4  When quoting from the Dead Sea scrolls, overlapping manuscripts were merged into a composite text, so that brackets mark only conjectural restorations. The numbering of lines distinguishes, with the prime sign, between lines of columns (1, 2, 3) and lines of fragments (1ʹ, 2ʹ, 3ʹ).

Priests of Qoreb

39

Second among the priests of ‹QWRB›, a second council in the wondrous abode (5)  ‫( הללו [לאל] אלוהים שבע [כוהונ]ו֯ ת קורבו‬4Q405 8–9 4–5 || 4Q403 1 ii 20 || 11Q17 3 [= col. II] 6)5 Praise [the God of] gods, O seven [priestly order]s of His ‹QWRB›. (6) [. . .] ‫[ רוש מכוהן קורב וראשי עדת המלך בקהל‬. . .] (4Q403 1ii 24) Chief [. . .] from a priest of ‹QWRB›, and the chiefs of the King’s congregation in the assembly of [. . .] Song XI: (7)  ‫קור ֗ב‬ ֗ ֗‫ [דב]י֯ ֯רו כול ֗כוהני‬...‫[לו]א יתמהמהו בעומדם‬ ֗ (4Q405 20 ii–22 1ʹ [= col. J 10] || 11Q17 16–18 [= col. VII] 3) They shall [no]t delay in taking their stand . . . His [inner sanct] um, all the priests of ‹QWRB› Song I describes the establishment of the cultic function of the angels, and twice juxtaposes the collocation ‫ כוהני קורב‬with an appositive: ‫משרתי פני מלך‬ “servants of the king’s presence” (no. 1), and ‫קדושי קדושים‬, “the holiest among the holy ones” (3). These epithets demonstrate that the angels called ‫כוהני קורב‬ belong to the highest ranks of the priestly hierarchy at the heavenly temple, since they are allowed to be in the very presence of the divinity. A similar relation is implied by the designation ‫ראשי עדת המלך‬, “chiefs of the king’s congregation” (6), from Song VIII. Song I further informs us that these senior angels possess divine knowledge (2), and are thus in charge of the teaching (‫ )הורות‬of the other angels, called ‫קדושים‬, “holy ones.” The important position of these priests is reflected also in Song XI, which seems to place them in the inner sanctum (‫ )דביר‬of the heavenly temple (7). Songs VI–VIII portray a picture according to which seven groups or orders of priests officiate in the celestial shrine; these are probably denoted by the term ‫( כהונות קורב‬5).6 Song VIII focuses on the second order, which consists of ‫נשיאי משנה‬, “deputy princes,” and defines them as ‫שניים בכוהני קורב סוד שני במעון פלא‬, “second among the priests of ‹QWRB›, a second council in the wondrous abode” (4). The functional matrix that emerges from this survey is that the collocation ‫כוהני קורב‬ refers to the angels that serve as priests in the heavenly temple, and best fits a

5  For the restoration ‫שבע [כוהונ]ו֯ ת‬, cf. further in the Song VIII: ‫כו֗ ֯ה[נות] ֗ש ֗בע במקדש פלא‬ ‫לשבעת סודי קודש‬, “seven priest[ly orders] in the wondrous temple for the seven holy cadres” (4Q403 1 ii 22). 6  For the use of the noun ‫ כהונה‬to denote a group of priests, see 1 Sam 2:36; cf. Neh 13:9.

40

Mizrahi

select group of them—those who hold the highest ranking positions in the celestial hierarchy.7 2

Current Interpretation and its Problems

2.1 Newsom’s Interpretation Newsom established the standard understanding of the expression by consistently translating all its occurrences as “priests of the inner sanctum.” The word ‫ קורב‬is thus taken as a reference to the innermost part of the temple, functioning as a virtual synonym of the architectural term ‫דביר‬. This interpretation is based on the premise that ‫ קורב‬is nothing but a morphological biform of the BH noun ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬in the sense of “inner part.”8 Indeed, the use of this lexeme in relation to the temple was compared by Newsom to a biblical psalmodic passage:9 (8) ‫ֹלהים ַח ְס ֶּדָך ְּב ֶק ֶרב ֵה ָיכ ֶלָך‬ ִ ‫( ִּד ִּמינּו ֱא‬Ps 48:10) We ponder your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your palace. Newsom backed her argument that ‫ קורב‬is a biform of ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬with a seemingly unequivocal piece of evidence adduced from a biblical quotation embedded in another work found in Qumran, the so-called Pesher Melchizedek: (9) ‫ֹלהים יִ ְׁשּפֹט‬ ִ ‫ֹלהים נִ ָּצב ַּב ֲע ַדת ֵאל ְּב ֶק ֶרב ֱא‬ ִ ‫( ֱא‬Ps 82:1) God has taken his place in the divine council, in the midst of the gods he holds judgment. 7  The form ‫ קורב‬appears in two additional phrases, one that may come from Song IV: ‫קדושי‬ ‫קורב‬, “the holy ones of ‹QWRB›” (4Q401 16 2ʹ || 4Q402 9 4), and the other from Song IX: ‫רוחי‬ ‫קורב קודש קודשים‬, “the spirits of ‹QWRB›, holy of holies” (4Q405 14–15 i 4ʹ [=col. G 19] || 4Q403 3 2ʹ). Both phrases are unique, and seem to be variations of the more basic term ‫כוהני‬ ‫קורב‬, which recurs in the Songs. 8  See, e.g., Newsom, Songs, 36–37; cf. B. Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (trans. J. Chipman; STDJ 12; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 288 n. 47. Newsom’s interpretation also underlies James Davila’s attempt to connect ‫ כוהני קורב‬with the figure of the archangel Metatron, known from much later sources as the angel who bears God’s name within him, following biblical proof-texts such as Exod 23:20–23 (mentioning a divine messenger about whom God says: ‫כי שמי בקרבו‬, “for my name is within him”) and Isa 63:7–14. See his paper, “The Macrocosmic Temple, Scriptural Exegesis, and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,” DSD 9 (2002): 1–19, esp. 12–17, elaborating his earlier comment in Liturgical Works (Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls 6; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), 98. 9  Newson, Songs, 36–37.

Priests of Qoreb

41

(10) ‫בע[דת אל ] ֗בקורב אלוהים‬ ֗ ‫ אלוהים [נ] ֗צב‬:‫כאשר כתוב עליו בשירי ֗דו֗ יד אשר אמר‬ ‫( ישפוט‬11Q13 ii 9–10) As it is said concerning it in the Songs of David, who has said: “God has taken his place in the divine council, in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.” While the Tiberian vocalization of the MT has ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬qέrεb, which originates in *qirb-, the quoted passage contains an alternative form that is spelled plene, with a waw. Presumably, this is also a segholate form, but one that goes back to *qurb-, which in the Tiberian tradition would have yielded ‫ ק ֶֹרב‬qórεb. Apparently this is a case of the common interchange between nouns of the primitive patterns *qitl/qatl on the one hand and *qutl on the other, which is a common feature of QH.10 2.2 Counter Considerations The morphological facts adduced by Newsom are indisputable, but in my judgment their relevance for the interpretation of ‫ כוהני קורב‬can be questioned for several reasons. 2.2.1 Semantics First and foremost, there is no clear evidence anywhere in Hebrew that ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬has ever been used as an architectural term in general, or denoted the holiest part of the temple in particular. This is certainly not the meaning of Ps 82:1 (no. 9), and there is no indication that Ps 48:10 (no. 8) refers necessarily to the inner sanctum rather than the temple in general. Moreover, the very assumption that the form ‫ קורב‬in the Songs can be interpreted as “inner part” may be misguided, as it does not give sufficient weight to a crucial semantic distinction between two different usages in BH: (a) The substantive ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬is a primary noun that denotes the entrails, and this concrete meaning is particularly clear whenever the word is used in unbound constructions: (11) ‫ וְ ַה ֶּק ֶרב וְ ַה ְּכ ָר ַעיִ ם יִ ְר ַחץ ַּב ָּמיִ ם וְ ִה ְק ִריב ַהּכ ֵֹהן ֶאת ַהּכֹל‬. . . ‫( וְ ָׁש ַחט אֹתֹו‬Lev 1:11–13) He shall slaughter it . . . He shall wash the entrails and the legs with water. Then the priest shall offer the whole. 10   E. Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (HSS 29; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986), 65 §330.1a. For the wider phonological background of this interchange, see E. Y. Kutscher, The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) (STDJ 6; Leiden: Brill, 1974), 452–96.

42

Mizrahi

(12) ‫תח ֗מי֗ ר מעי דך וקרב עני אל תכאיב‬ ֗ ‫( אל‬Sir 4:2–3 [ms a]) Do not churn the stomach of an oppressed person; and to the entrails of a poor man, do not cause pain.11 (b) By contrast, the more abstract notion of “inner part” is found, if at all, only in bound usages of the word, notably when it forms part of the prepositional phrases ‫ ְּב ֶק ֶרב‬and ‫ ִמ ֶּק ֶרב‬. These forms are the product of grammaticalzation of the word when used figuratively. Thus, for instance, ‫( ְּב ֶק ֶרב ָה ָעם‬e.g., Num 14:14) “in the entrails of the people” > “in the midst of the people” > “among the people”; ‫( ְּב ֶק ֶרב ָה ָא ֶרץ‬e.g., Gen 45:6) “in the entrails of the land” > “in the midst of the land” > “within the land.” The semantic change gave rise to syntactic reanalysis, in which the distinct components of the prepositional phrases were fused together and reinterpreted as a single, compound preposition, that is: ]‫[ ֶק ֶרב ָה ָעם‬+‫“ ְּב‬in [the entrails of the people]” > “in [the midst of the people]” > ‫ ֶק ֶרב] ָה ָעם‬+‫[“ [ ְּב‬in the midst of] the people” > “[among] the people” (cf. Judg 18:20).12 This semantic and syntactic development follows a predictable path, being a typological process that is well-attested cross-linguistically.13 Against this background, it becomes clear that the use of ‫ ְּב ֶק ֶרב‬in (8) and (9) is in no way exceptional. Synchronically, it functions as an extended form of the simple preposition ‫ ְּב־‬. Translating it as “in the midst” in both psalms is thus somewhat misleading; “among” would be a more idiomatic rendition. In any case, this bound usage—as part of compound prepositions—signifies 11  For the first hemistich, cf. Lam 1:20. 12  A comparable development was operative in the metaphorical use of the lexeme ‫לב‬ “heart,” for instance: ‫עד ֵלב ַה ָּׁש ַמיִ ם‬,ַ lit. “up to the heart of the heavens” > fig. “to the very heavens” (Deut 4:11); ‫ּב ֶלב יָ ם‬,ְ lit. “in the heart of the sea” > fig. “in the deep sea” (Exod 15:8). Cf. further ]‫[תֹוְך הבית‬+‫“ ְּב־‬in [the midst of the house]” > ‫תֹוְך] הבית‬+‫[ּב־‬ ְ “[within] the house,” and not necessarily in its middle part (cf. Ezek 23:39). For this semantic change in Hebrew and Akkadian, and for the semantic relation between ‫“ ֶק ֶרב‬entrails” and ‫ֵלב‬ “heart”, see E. Dhorme, L’emploi métaphorique des noms de parties du corps en hébreu et en akkadien (Paris: Geuthner, 1923), 109–12. Note, in passing, that the grammaticalization of ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬may go back to very early times; A. D. Rubin, Studies in Semitic Grammaticalzation (HSS 57; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 46 §3.3.1, cautiously considers the possibility that this development took place already in Proto-Afro-Asiatic, since it is attested in Egyptian. For the linguistic prehistory of the various Semitic cognates, cf. Y. L. Arbeitman, “You Gotta Have Heart,” in Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East: Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff (ed. A. Afsaruddin and A. H. M. Zahniser; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 363–68. 13  See, e.g., B. Heine and T. Kuteva, World Lexicon of Grammaticalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 53–54, s.v. “belly (‘Belly, Stomach’) > in (Spatial)”.

Priests of Qoreb

43

nothing as far as the unbound use of ‫( ֶק ֶרב‬or ‫ )ק ֶֹרב‬as an independent lexeme is concerned, and the alleged sense of “inner part” is not independently attested in ancient Hebrew. 2.2.2 Historical Development Another consideration militating against the lexical identification of the Songs’ ‫ קורב‬with ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬is that the latter form has been rendered obsolete in Second Temple Hebrew. This is evident in two complementary processes that were operative in the language of the literary sources that survive from this period. (a) Morphology: For denoting the original, concrete sense of the noun, a new grammatical form has been coined in Second Temple Hebrew. Rather than using the old singular ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬, an innovative dual (or dual-like) is preferred, namely, ‫ ְק ָר ַביִ ם‬.14 This form is first attested as a suffixed form in LBH: (13) ‫( ָּב ְר ִכי נַ ְפ ִׁשי ֶאת ה׳ וְ ָכל ְק ָר ַבי ֶאת ֵׁשם ָק ְדׁשֹו‬Ps 103:1)15 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all my organs (lit. “my entrails”), bless his holy name. In its independent form, ‫ ְק ָר ַביִ ם‬is attested in QH. A telling example is furnished by Jub. 21:8, which reworks an earlier, Pentateuchal prescription: (14a) ‫( וְ ֵאת ָּכל ַה ֵח ֶלב ֲא ֶׁשר ַעל ַה ֶּק ֶרב וְ ֵאת ְׁש ֵּתי ַה ְּכ ָלי ֹת‬Lev 3:3–4) . . . and all the fat that is around the entrails, and the two kidneys . . . vs. (14b) ‫( [וא] ֯ת ה[ח] ֯לב אשר על הקרבים ואת הכליות‬4QJube [4Q220] 1 7ʹ) . . . [and] the [f]at that is around the entrails, and the kidneys . . . The adapter’s most conspicuous touch is the replacement of the older singular ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬by the innovative dual ‫ ְק ָר ַביִ ם‬, which was current in his vernacular. 14  This is perhaps on formal analogy with other terms that denote body parts: ‫“ יָ ַדיִ ם‬hands”, ‫“ ַרגְ ַליִ ם‬feet”, ‫“ ֵעינַ יִ ם‬eyes”, and especially ‫“ ֵמ ַעיִ ם‬internal organs”. Alternatively, the dual ending might reflect an anatomical distinction between the small intestine and the colon. 15  That Ps 103 belongs to the LBH corpus has been established, on independent grounds, by A. Hurvitz, The Transition Period in Biblical Hebrew (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1972), 107–30 [Hebrew]. Interestingly, the dual-like form is witnessed only by the vocalization, whereas the consonantal text ‫ קרבי‬is apt also for the singular form ‫ק ְר ִּבי‬,ִ which is common in CBH (cf. Isa 16:11; Ps 5:5; 94:19). The vocalization tradition thus captures, in this case, a grammatical difference between CBH and LBH that is not encoded in the consonantal text.

44

Mizrahi

The same tendency is executed more systematically—albeit not entirely consistently—in the Temple Scroll:16 (15a)

‫ּופ ְרׁשֹו‬ ִ ‫( וְ ֶאת עֹור ַה ָּפר וְ ֶאת ָּכל ְּב ָׂשרֹו ַעל רֹאׁשֹו וְ ַעל ְּכ ָר ָעיו וְ ִק ְרּבֹו‬Lev 4:11); And the skin of the bull and all its flesh, as well as its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung . . .

vs. (15b) ‫ [על ראושו וכרעיו] עם כול קרביו‬. . . ‫( ואת עורו עם פרשו ישרופו‬11QTa 16:11–13) They shall burn its skin with its dung . . . [its head and its legs] with all its entrails. . . (16a) ‫( וְ ֶאת ָּכל ַה ֵח ֶלב ֲא ֶׁשר ַעל ַה ֶּק ֶרב‬Lev 8:16; cf. v. 25; 3:3,9,14; 4:8); . . . and all the fat that is around the entrails . . . vs. (16b) ‫הק רבים‬ ֯ ‫החלב אשר על‬ ֗ ‫( ואת כול‬11QTa 20:5 || 11QTb 4:15) . . . and all the fat that is around the entrails . . . (16c) ‫( ואת אשר על הקרבים‬11QTa 23:15) . . . and everything that is around the entrails . . . (17a) ‫( וַ ּיִ ְר ַחץ ֶאת ַה ֶּק ֶרב וְ ֶאת ַה ְּכ ָר ָעיִ ם‬Lev 9:14; cf. Exod 29:17; Lev 1:9, 13; 8:21). He washed the entrails and the legs . . . vs. (17b) ‫( ומרחצים את הקרבים ואת הכרעים‬11QTa 34:10–11) And they wash the entrails and the legs . . . The dual form eventually becomes the default form in MH, for instance: (18) ‫( הקרביים מדיחין אתן שלשה פעמים‬m. Tamid 4:2) The entrails are being washed three times. Thus the original use of the word as a primary noun, which is peculiar both semantically (by having a concrete sense) and syntactically (by being used as an independent lexeme), is being marked, in Second Temple Hebrew, by a novel morphological marking. When denoting the internal organs, contemporaneous authors reveal a clear preference for the dual ‫ ְק ָר ַביִ ם‬over the older

16  In addition to the following passages, consider also ‫( את הקרבים ואת הרגלים‬11QTa 33:14– 15). This lexical trait of the language of the Temple Scroll was noted by E. Qimron, “The Lexicon of the Temple Scroll,” Shnaton 4 (1980): 239–62 [Hebrew], at 251 n. 41.

Priests of Qoreb

45

singular ‫קרב‬, regardless of the question how exactly the latter was vocalized (i.e., as either ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬or ‫)ק ֶֹרב‬. (b) Lexis: The compound prepositions ‫ ְּב ֶק ֶרב‬and ‫ ִמ ֶּק ֶרב‬fell out of use in QH, and are commonly replaced by the alternative compounds ‫ ְּבתֹוְך‬and ‫ ִמּתֹוְך‬.17 It can again be demonstrated by the Temple Scroll’s reworking of a biblical law, this time one that pertains to the Day of Atonement: (19a)

‫ וְ ָכל ַהּנֶ ֶפׁש ֲא ֶׁשר‬.‫יה‬ ָ ‫ וְ נִ ְכ ְר ָתה ֵמ ַע ֶּמ‬,‫ִּכי ָכל ַהּנֶ ֶפׁש ֲא ֶׁשר לֹא ְת ֻעּנֶ ה ְּב ֶע ֶצם ַהּיֹום ַהּזֶ ה‬ ָ ‫( ַּת ֲע ֶׂשה ָּכל ְמ ָל‬Lev ‫ וְ ַה ֲא ַב ְד ִּתי ֶאת ַהּנֶ ֶפׁש ַה ִהוא ִמ ֶּק ֶרב ַע ָּמּה‬,‫אכה ְּב ֶע ֶצם ַהּיֹום ַהּזֶ ה‬

23:29–30) For anyone who does not practice self-denial during that entire day shall be cut off from the people. And anyone who does any work during that entire day, such a one I will destroy from among the people.

vs. (19b) ‫כול האיש אשר יעשה ֗בו֗ מלאכה או אשר לוא יתענו בו – ונ֗ כרתו מתוך עממה‬ (11QTa 27:6–8) And any person, who does work during it, or those who do not practice self-denial during it, shall be cut off from among the people. While the scriptural passage freely interchanges between the simple preposition ‫( ִמן‬v. 29: ‫ ) ֵמ ַע ֶּמ ָיה‬and the compound preposition ‫( ִמ ֶּק ֶרב‬v. 30: ‫) ִמ ֶּק ֶרב ַע ָּמּה‬, the legal adaptation of the Temple Scroll prefers the compound preposition ‫( מתוך‬ll. 7–8: ‫)מתוך עממה‬. In light of this evidence, one can properly appreciate the striking fact that ‫ ְּבתֹוְך‬and ‫ ִמּתֹוְך‬are the only forms attested in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,18 whereas the older ‫ ְּב ֶק ֶרב‬and ‫ ִמ ֶּק ֶרב‬are not documented at all in the preserved fragments. These facts, drawn from the realms of morphology and lexis, render unlikely a linguistic connection between BH ‫( ֶק ֶרב‬or ‫)ק ֶֹרב‬, in any of its usages, and the enigmatic QH form ‫ קורב‬as found in the Songs.

17  This process of lexical replacement was recognized by A. Bendavid, Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew (rev. ed.; 2 vols.; Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1967), 1:361 [Hebrew]; cf. E. Qimron, “The Psalms Scroll from Qumran: A Linguistic Survey,” Lešonenu 35.2 (1971): 99–116 [Hebrew], at 116 §5.7. 18  Song VII: 4Q404 6 1ʹ; Song IX: 4Q405 14–15 i 6ʹ [= col. G 21]; Song XIII: 4Q405 23 ii 8ʹ, 9ʹ [= col. L 19, 20].

46 3

Mizrahi

Other Alternative Interpretations

Two other interpretations of ‫ קורב‬may be (or have been) proposed, but in my opinion they do not supply proper solution for the problem at hand. 3.1 Borrowing from Aramaic? One option, mentioned by Newsom in passing, is to consider ‫ קורב‬as a borrowing from Aramaic ‫קורבא‬19—a masculine counterpart of the Hebrew feminine form ‫( ִק ְר ָבה‬attested only as part of the fixed phrase ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ ִק ְר ַבת ֱא‬in Isa 58:2; Ps 73:28).20 Apparently this was also the opinion of Elisha Qimron, who included ‫ קורב‬in the list of Aramaic borrowings appended to his grammar of QH.21 If this interpretation is correct, the form ‫ קורב‬is not directly related to the Hebrew noun ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬or its prepositional derivations.22 The difficulty with this solution is that the form ‫ קורבא‬is attested in eastern dialects of Middle and Late Aramaic (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Syriac, and Mandaic), but not in the western dialects (Jewish, Samaritan, and 19  Newsom translated this word as “nearness, approach,” based on Jastrow’s dictionary. Sokoloff, in his recent dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, prefers to gloss it with “close distance.” 20  Newsom seems to have changed her mind in this regard. In her dissertation, she presented this explanation on a par with the one discussed above (§2.1), i.e., the one that equates it with ‫ק ֶרב‬.ֶ See C. A. Newsom, “4Q Serek Šîrôt ‘Ôlat HašŠabbāt (The Qumran Angelic Liturgy): Edition, Translation, and Commentary” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1982), 52–54. In her book, she focused on the ‫קורב‬/‫ ֶק ֶרב‬equation, relegating the possibility of an Aramaism to a footnote (Newsom, Songs, 77 n. 8). Her final DJD edition does not include an introduction, but when commenting on the first occurrence of the phrase ‫כוהני קורב‬ (DJD 11:180) she refers only to the interchange between ‫ ֶק ֶרב‬and ‫ קורב‬and makes no mention of the Aramaic form. 21  Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 116 §600. 22  The two words may be unrelated also from an etymological point of view. As mentioned above, ‫“ ֶק ֶרב‬entrails” is a primary noun, which needs not be derived from any verbal root. Rather, it should be compared to related primary nouns in other Semitic and Afro-Asiatic languages; see A. Militarev and L. Kogan, Semitic Etymological Dictionary, I: Anatomy of Man and Animals (AOAT 278.1; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2000), 146, 149–50, nn. 161 and 165; cf. H. Holma, Die Namen der Körperteile im Assyrisch-Babylonischen: Eine LexikalischEtymologische Studie (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Kustantama, 1911), 59–62 (s.v. qablu), 68–69 (s.v. qirbu, qirbitu). In contradistinction, Hebrew ‫ ִק ְר ָבה‬and Aramaic ‫ קורבא‬are evidently derived from the verb q-r-b “to approach, come or draw near.” The etymon of this verb possibly differs from that of the primary noun, although the issue is debated among etymologists and lexicographers; contrast, e.g., BDB, 897 and 899 with the comment of N. H. Tur-Sinai in E. Ben-Yehuda’s Thesaurus, 12:6141a, n. 1.

Priests of Qoreb

47

Christian Palestinian Aramaic). Had the word penetrated into Hebrew from Aramaic, one would expect to find its traces in the western dialects, which were spoken in Palestine, rather than in the eastern dialects, which were spoken in Mesopotamia. The fact that the documented evidence is opposite to the expected distribution casts doubts on the initial assumption, and cautions one from accepting the hypothesis that this item was indeed borrowed from Aramaic.23 To be sure, there might be an exception to this rule in the form of a word spelled ‫ קורבא‬that was recently found in a small Aramaic fragment allegedly coming from Qumran. Its exact interpretation, however, is hampered by the fragmentary context. Two options were proposed: (a) André Lemaire, who first published the fragment under the provisional siglum XQ6, read and restored in line 3ʹ: ‫על (?) מדב] ֯חי֯ לקורבא קו֯ [רבנא‬, and interpreted the form as a D infinitive.24 This grammatical analysis, however, would normally necessitate a form without a waw, namely, ‫ ְל ָק ָר ָבא‬, as is indeed found in all the parallel examples adduced by Lemaire himself. (b) Émile Puech re-edited the fragment under the siglum 4Q587 (frg. 1), but his reading at this point is indecisive: -‫ירבא קו֯ [דמ‬/‫אקי] ֯מנ֯ י לקו‬. When commenting on this line, he hesitates on whether the form should be read as ‫( קירבא‬following Hebrew ‫ ) ִק ְר ָבה‬or ‫( קורבא‬in accordance with Syriac ‫)ܩܘܪܒܐ‬.25 The first option is unlikely, since medial short /i/ is rarely if ever represented by yod in the Qumran scrolls, while the second option is dialectally problematic, as explained above. The fragmentary state of the text, as well as the doubts concerning the reading of the other words in context, precludes any definitive answer. Nevertheless, Lemaire may have been on the right track in taking the form not as a noun but rather as an infinitive. This interpretation, however, should be slightly modified in order to accommodate for the unexpected presence of a waw. The plene spelling may be a product of an irregular phonetic change, which is sporadically attested in various Aramaic dialects as well as in QH, vis., the change of /a/ > /o/ before /r/ in closed syllables.26 23  This is in contrast to the Hebrew feminine form ‫קורבה‬, which is attested only in much later sources: the dictum of R. Pedat quoted in b. Šabb. 13a (although note that the parallel quote in b. ʿAbod. Zar. 17a has the form ‫ ;)קריבה‬Tanḥuma Buber, addition to Devarim, 3a. For this particular form, the assumption of influence from Jewish Babylonian Aramaic is plausible. 24  A. Lemaire, DJD 36:490–91, pl. xxxii. 25  É. Puech, DJD 37:501–4, esp. 502–3, pl. xxv. 26  See Kutscher, The Language and Linguistic Background of 1QIsaa, 496–97.

48

Mizrahi

Notwithstanding that this is not the only possible explanation for the ambiguous form that occurs in the small fragment, it is precisely the ambiguity of this occurrence that renders it useless for our concern. As long as there is no other, unambiguous occurrence of ‫ קורבא‬in Western Aramaic, the most reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the available evidence is that this nominal form typifies the eastern dialects and was not necessarily in use in Palestine during the Greco-Roman period. Consequently, it seems unlikely that it was borrowed by Hebrew speakers at that time. 3.2 Prefiguring Late Semantics? Another alternative solution is suggested by the fact that sources much later than the Songs attest to two terms that are derived from q-r-b and might be pertinent for the case under review: (a) some Amoraic sources refer to ‫ ָקרֹוב‬, a term that is said to mean “a prayer leader,”27 and (b) some Genizah fragments mention the term ‫רֹובה‬ ָ ‫ ְק‬as a designation of a genre of Piyyuṭ, Hebrew liturgical poetry of the Byzantine period. These terms form the basis for the opinion that some occurrences of the verb q-r-b in rabbinic literature can be interpreted as having the sense “to pray, sing, compose or perform poetry” or the like.28 This was suggested especially in relation to sources belonging to Amoraic (i.e., late rabbinic literature), but a few homilies in Tannaitic (i.e., early rabbinic literature) may also reflect such an understanding.29 Contrary to that assumption, Miron Bialik Lerner has convincingly demonstrated that such an interpretation is fraught with doubts. At the very least, his

27  The nominal pattern qātol is common for nomina agentis; it appears already in the transitional period from CBH to LBH (probably under Aramaic influence), and its distribution expands in MH. 28  See especially S. Lieberman, “The Liturgical Poetry of Yannai,” Sinai 4 (1939): 221–50 [Hebrew], at 223–24; A. HaCohen, Cathedra 64 (1992): 172–74 [Hebrew]. 29  Lieberman mentions two homilies from Sifre Deuteronomy, but his interpretation was refuted by M. B. Lerner, “The Beginning of Piyyut: Talmudic and Midrashic Inquiries,” Sidra 9 (1993): 13–34 [Hebrew], esp. 19–20. Prof. Menaḥem Kahana drew my attention to two additional homilies in Sifre Numbers §116 (ed. Hurovitz, 131–32) that may be relevant, and suggested that I consider the possibility that the same meaning is at play with the phrase ‫ כוהני קורב‬in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. The homilies in Sifre Numbers, however, pose several exegetical difficulties of their own, and cannot be said to utilize such a meaning unambiguously. Moreover, even if they are interpreted in this way, this is not necessarily relevant for the Songs (cf. below, n. 31).

Priests of Qoreb

49

analysis makes it very difficult to assume that such a sense was functional in the language of the early rabbis, the Tannaim.30 Furthermore, even if one assumes that such a verb or a particular sense of it were known to users of Second Temple Hebrew, it still does not supply adequate explanation for the phrase ‫ כוהני קורב‬in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. To begin with, there is a conceptual difficulty: at least in the earthly temple, liturgical singing is a ritual task peculiar to the Levites, who stand outside the inner cultic circle, rather than the priests, who serve within it.31 The latter are supposed to perform their cultic duties in silence, and this holds true to their angelic projections as described in the Songs.32 In addition, although the Songs portray a picture according to which the main ritual performed in the heavenly temple is glorifying God by songs of praise, this is not the primary theme of the specific passages that contain the phrase ‫כוהני קורב‬. Indeed, the extensively preserved fragments from Songs VI and VII describe with much detail the angelic liturgy, but, tellingly, nowhere do they mention the term ‫כוהני קורב‬. To be sure, the term does surface in Song VIII, which parallels Song VI in its structure and content, but in all its contexts the phrase seems to designate—and possibly to explain—the place of the angels within the priestly cultic hierarchy of the heavenly temple, not their liturgical function in organizing the prayer. 30  Lerner, “The Beginning of Piyyut,” 21–25. I should add that the two relevant terms are not necessarily related to one another. The nomen agentis ‫ קרוב‬occurs in an ambiguous context that plays with several possible derivations ( y. Ber. 8b [ed. Academy of Hebrew Language, 39]). By contrast, the term ‫קרובה‬, which denotes a genre of liturgical poetry, ܵ may be compared to Syriac ‫ܩܘܪ ܼܵܒܐ‬ ܼ /qurrābā/, which can denote “liturgy,” especially the mass; as such, it might be a metonymic extension of the original sense of “offering, sacrifice” in a specialized usage, i.e., when referring to the Eucharist. See the references in M. Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon: A Translation from the Latin, Correction, Expansion and Update of C. Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 1343a. The technical terminology of Byzantine Piyyuṭ contains several items that were evidently borrowed from Greek and Aramaic, and some of them may have come from Syriac. See, e.g., C. Aslanov, “Bayt (‘House’) as ‘Strophe’ in Hebrew, Byzantine and Near Eastern Poetry,” Le Muséon 121 (2008): 297–310. For the cultural setting that enabled—and even motivated—such borrowings, cf. Aslanov, “Romanos the Melodist and Palestinian Piyyut: Sociolinguistic and Pragmatic Perspectives,” in Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures (ed. R. Bonfil et al.; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 613–28. 31  This rule also applies to the two homilies quoted from Sifre Numbers (above, n. 29), which indeed refer to the Levites. 32  I. Knohl, “Between Voice and Silence: The Relationship between Prayer and Temple Cult,” JBL 115 (1996): 17–30.

50

Mizrahi

To sum up this part of the discussion, previous interpretations of the phrase

‫ כוהני קורב‬are incompatible with the full range of linguistic facts, drawn from

Hebrew semantics and lexicology as well as Aramaic dialectology. These data thus force us to search for a solution to the problem in a different direction. 4

New Proposal

4.1 Grammatical Analysis A proper starting point must be an acceptable morphological analysis of the form in question. I submit that the simplest—and hence the most ­compelling—analysis takes ‫ קורב‬to be a verbal noun, a nomen actionis of the G verb ‫“ ָק ַרב‬to approach, draw near.”33 Morphologically, it can be viewed as a ‘masculine’ biform of BH ‫( ָק ְר ָבה‬/qɔrb-ɔ/ < *qurb-ā), which is used as a ‘feminine’ infinitive of the G stem:34 (20) ‫אכה ַל ֲעׂש ֹת א ָֹתּה‬ ָ ‫ ְל ָק ְר ָבה ֶאל ַה ְּמ ָל‬. . .‫( וַ ּיִ ְק ָרא מ ֶֹׁשה ֶאל ְּב ַצ ְל ֵאל‬Exod 36:2) Moses called Bezalel . . . to come to do the work. A comparable interchange between a ‘feminine’ infinitive in BH and a ‘masculine’ verbal noun in QH—both of which exhibit a similar segholate nominal pattern (historical *qVtl)—is to be found in the way in which the language of the Community Rule adapts a BH expression: (21a) ‫( ַמיִ ם ְל ָר ְח ָצה‬Exod 40:30) water for washing vs. (21b) ‫( מי רחץ‬1QS 3:5) washing water

33  Segholate nouns are commonly employed in BH as nomina actionis of the G stem. See H. Bauer und P. Leander, Historische Grammatik der hebräischen Sprache des Alten Testament (Halle: Niemeyer, 1922; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1965), 461, §61k″–l″. 34  The terms “masculine” and “feminine” are used in this context solely as a descriptive means to refer to the grammatical marking of these inanimate nouns with or without final *-ā, without implying anything about their syntactic behavior. For the use of such “feminine” infinitival forms in BH, see A. Cohen, “The Infinitive plus Hé,” Lešonenu 33 (1969): 238 [Hebrew].

Priests of Qoreb

51

Against the infinitival purpose clause attested in BH, which employs the “feminine” form ‫ ָר ְח ָצה‬/rɔḥṣ-ɔ/ < *ruḥṣ-ā (21a),35 the Community Rule makes use of a construct phrase; its nomen rectum is a segholate ‘masculine’ form: ‫מי רחץ‬ (21b), whose Tiberian counterpart can be either ‫*