Israelian Hebrew

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This article is about a proposed dialect of Biblical Hebrew. For modern Israeli Hebrew, see Modern Hebrew.
The northern kingdom of Israel and its neighbours.

Israelian Hebrew (or IH) is a northern

synchronic rather than diachronic linguistics
, meaning various biblical texts could be significantly older than many 20th century scholars supposed.

What constitutes linguistic irregularity in the MT is not in dispute, nor is the affinity of many these features to aspects of Aramaic. What distinguishes the theories is a historical question of

Jewish people are known), suffered a defeat at the hands of the Aramaic speaking neo-Babylonian Empire,[1] which involved deportation according to standard Babylonian practice. This language contact is recognised by all scholars, as are the resultant Aramaisms in late Biblical Hebrew (LBH). What the IH proposal explains, which LBH does not, is the Aramaisms (and other features) that appear in texts that many scholars would consider antedated the period of exile in Babylon. The two theories are thus not incompatible, which is why they co-existed throughout the 20th century. However, the more recent work does pose a challenge to the traditional dating of some specific texts in the Bible, the Song of Songs
in particular.

Features

Phonology

The reconstruction of IH proposes that diachronic phonetic shifts in ancient Israelite dialects varied geographically, with northern shifts attesting a number of isoglosses with Aramaic and other northwest Semitic languages.

ṯ̣ > ṣ or ṯ̣ > ṭ

The assumed

Judeo-Aramaic language
.)

ṣ́ > ṣ or ṣ́ > q > ʕ

ṯ > š or ṯ > t

ḏ > z or ḏ > d

Morphology

Various irregularities in the morphology of words attested in BH also show affinities with languages neighbouring ancient Israel to the north.

Relative pronoun

The relative pronoun in SBH is asher (אשר), and in Mishnaic Hebrew (MH) is sh– (–ש). LBH appears to represent a transition stage: the latter form appears, but inconsistently. The Song of Songs is unusual in that it uses –ש consistently, with the sole exception of its first verse, which functions as a title. The Phoenician and Ammonite cognate is אש.

Independent pronoun

The irregular second-person feminine singular independent pronoun אתי appears as the

Ketiv in several IH texts including Judges 17:2, 1 Kings 14:2, and 2 Kings 4:16, 4:23, 8:1.[4]

Nomina actionis

Nominalization of verbs (the paradigm example being qātal, קטל) by forming a feminine nomen actionis (qətîlāh, קטלה) is common in MH, but rare in SBH.

Syntax

Double plural

SBH utilises the

nomen rectum) occurs in its phonetically full form, known as the status absolutus. In SBH, the plural–singular distinction between nouns is still apparent, whether they are cast in absolute or construct form. However, there are a number of cases in the Bible, where the plural form of either nomen regens or nomen rectum is adopted to echo its partner, irrespective of whether it is intended to denote a singular referent. A clear example comes from 2 Kings 15:25 where the form of the toponymic nomen rectum Gilead is plural in the construction bəne Gil`adim (בני גלעדים, "sons of Gilead"), but clearly intends singular reference, not "*sons of Gileads".[clarification needed] An example of the SBH form of exactly the same phrase bəne Gil`ad (בני גלעד) can be found in Numbers 26:30, without the masculine plural suffix –im (as in cherub/–im, seraph/–im, kibbutz
/–im).

Periphrastic genitive

The periphrastic genitive is utilized in MH, Aramaic and Amurru Akkadian to convey an intensity regarding possession, but it is only used once in the Bible—in Song of Songs 3:7 regarding Solomon (מטתו שלשלמה, lit. "his divan which is Solomon's").

Deponent participle

There are two and only two instances of a deponent participle (passive form with active meaning) in the Hebrew Bible: nəḥittim (נחתים, "descended" for descending, 2 Kings 6:9) and 'aḥuzi chereb (אחזי חרב, "grasped of sword", Song of Songs 3:8). Song (or Canticles) 3:8 survives in the Qumran fragment 4QCantc. This grammatical device is common in Mishnaic Hebrew (MH) and Syriac, which are of relatively late dates; but the contexts could also suggest northern settings, influencing the phraseology.

Demonstrative pronoun

The variant feminine singular demonstrative pronoun זוֹ / זֹה is found in 2 Kings 6:19, Hosea 7:16, Psalm 132:12, and six times in the book of Ecclesiastes. All of these are IH texts, making this variant demonstrative pronoun a peculiarity of the Israelian Hebrew dialect.[5]

Lexicon

A number of words have uneven distribution in the MT of the Hebrew Bible, if the indicators above (and internal evidence from the

Aram
.

One of the clearest cases is the use of the word n`m (נעם, "good, sweet, pleasant", as in the name

Ugaritic, as in SBH, both n`m and ṭb are used to convey the idea goodness. In Phoenician, n`m is the only attested word for "good". It is also common in personal names: Adonis is called נעמן in Phoenician. Likewise, we know of the Aramaic name Naaman
, from the general of that name mentioned in 2 Kings 5. Close inspection of the MT reveals that 22 to 26 of the thirty uses of נעם can be associated with the north.

Methodology

The IH hypothesis identifies a number of linguistic features which are irregular in biblical Hebrew, but standard in the languages of her northern neighbours, or in MH (which clearly postdates the Bible, since it quotes it).

Evidence in the Song of Songs

As early as 1920,

Dead Sea scrolls (4QCantb), attesting features of IH.[7] By 2009, Noegel and Rendsburg had listed a total of "twenty grammatical and thirty-one lexical items" typical of IH in the MT of the Song.[8]

References

  1. ^ Akkadian-Aramaic bilingualism can be assumed for first-millennium Mesopotamia". Eva Von Dassow, "Advances in Late Babylonian", Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (2002): 535–541.
  2. ^ Noegel and Rendsburg (2009): 11.
  3. BDB
    , 642; HALOT, 695.
  4. ^ Rendsburg (2012): 345
  5. ^ Rendsburg (2012): 345
  6. ^ Driver (1920): 448–49. Emphasis original.
  7. ^ Young (2001).
  8. ^ Noegel and Rendsburg (2009): 52.

Bibliography

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