The Masorah consists of annotations that literally hedge in the text.* They are usually classified as follows: (1) The initial Masorah, surrounding the first
6 Pp. 4-42, esp. p. 41 n. 4.
’ For detailed bibliographies on the MT, see Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An lntro- duction, trans. from 3d German ed. (Tbbingen, 1964) by Peter R. Ackroyd (New York: Harper &
Row, 1965 ), 678-93,781-82; Roberts, Old Testament Text, 286-99; Waldman, Recent Study, chap. 3; Tov, Textual Criticism, passim.
s On the subject of the Masorah, see Ginsburg, Introduction, passim. The Massoretb Ha- Massoretb of Elias Jhitu, Being an Exposition of the Massoretic Notes on the Hebrew Bible, ed. with a trans. by Christian D. Ginsburg (London, 1867), explains the origin and import of the Masorah and comments on its signs and abbreviations; see also Waldman, Recent Study, 136-52, with bibliographic details. Sid Z. Leiman, ed., prepares a feast in The Canon and Masorab
word of a book. (2) The marginal Masorah. This is of two types. The small, usually termed masorah parva (Mp), is ordinarily located on the side margins, though it may also be interlinear; the larger masorah magna (Mm), is usually on the lower margin, though it is also found on the top or side margins of the leaves of other manuscripts. (3) The Masorah following the text, masorah finalis. This is a classification in alphabetic order of the masoretic tradition and is located at the end of masoretic manuscripts. It is not to be confused with the final Masorah terminating individual books.
One of the most elaborate Masorah collections is Christian D. Ginsburg’s The Massorab, in four huge volumes (London, 1880-1905; reprint, New York:
KTAV, 1975). The first two volumes present the Hebrew text of the Masorah;
volume 3 is a supplement, and volume 4 presents an English translation of the material through the letter yodh. The work is incomplete. Although Paul Kahle, annoyed chiefly by the uncritical massing of material without concern for manuscript evaluation, had some harsh words for this work,9 it is neverthe- less a major production and with its volume 4 does help novices make their way through the painstaking notations of dedicated scribes. For advanced work on the Masorah the student will of course check carefully the material presented by Ginsburg and, if possible, consult Gerard E. Weil, Massorah Gedolah iuxta codicem Leningradensem Bl9a, 1 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute; Stuttgart:
Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1971). Of more modest size is Das Buch Ochlah W’ochlah (Massoru), by Solomon Frensdorff (Hannover, 1864), an ancient masoretic work so entitled from its first two entries, “&@ (1 Sam. 1:9) and
??T& (Gen. 27:19). Various phenomena noted in the Masorah are here found neatly grouped together under numbered paragraphs, together with an index of Scripture passages. Thus, on page 99 of this book, under para. 106, it is stated that i? is found twice when it should be read as a ti;L, (with an aleph).
The passages are then cited, 1 Sam. 2:16 and 20:2. Both notations appear in the margins of BHS.
Printed texts of the Hebrew Bible have at various times incorporated the Masorah in varying degrees of completeness. The second edition of Daniel Bomberg’s Rabbinic Bible, edited by Jacob ben Chayyim (Venice, 1524-25), was the first to print large portions of the Masorah. The Sixth Rabbinic Bible, edited by Johann Buxtorf (Basel, 1618), is one of the more accessible repubfica- tions of Chayyim’s work. A companion volume, Tiberias sive commentarius masorethicus triplex, historicus, didacticus, criticus, first published in 1620 (Basel) by the elder Buxtorf, was revised by his son and, according to the title page, carefully reedited by his grandson Johann Jacob (Basel, 1665). As the
of the Hebrew Bible: An Introductory Reader, Library of Biblical Studies, ed. Harry Orlinsky (New York: KTAV, 1974): selected articles by numerous scholars on topics relating to the history of the Old Testament and the pre-Tiberian and post-Tiberian evidence for rhe Masorah.
’ Masoreten des Ostens, xiv-xvi.
50 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study The Hebrew Old Testament 51 title indicates, the work includes a history of the Masorah, a key to its con-
tents, and a critique of readings found in various copies of the Masorah. C. D.
Ginsburg’s edition, as observed earlier, includes much masoretic material. The edition of the Hebrew Bible produced by Baer and Delitzsch (Leipzig, 1869-95) is much scantier by comparison. Kittel’s third edition of Biblia Hebraica aimed to make accessible to the average student a fairly representative survey of masoretic data, as found in the Leningrad MS, but only the Mp edited by Paul Kahle was printed (see BHK, v, viii-ix). A completely reedited text of the Mp was done for BHS in conjunction with Weil’s edition of the masorah magna, which was published separately. The first apparatus in BHS, readily recog- nized by the recurring abbreviation “Mm,” directs the reader of the Mp to a numbered section in Weil’s edition of the Mm, where the masoretes’ detailed data on the specific item are presented.
When using the Masorah, one must give attention to the various sources of the tradition. There is no such thing as the Masorah. Many manuscripts include no Masorah whatever; others vary in the number, the position, and the contents of the Masorah. Numerical inconsistencies, incomplete or even contradictory codifications, are to be expected in a comparison of two or more Masorah traditions in different manuscripts!0
It is true that many of the notations in the margins of BHS deal with minutiae, but buried in these marginal notes coming from a long tradition are countless items of interest, and with only a little labor the average student may not only develop a finer appreciation of the zeal that propelled these singular students of the Word but also pick up valuable philological and lexicographical data.
As in the case of Nestle’s Novum Testamenturn Graece, it has been our experience that few users of the printed masoretic text are familiar with the meanings of the many signs and notations employed. Some may even say “good luck,” when looking at the Latin-locked “Index siglorum et abbreviationurn masorae parvae” in BHS (pp. 1-1~). Th’1s is a glossary that provides Latin equivalents for abbreviations and other sigla in the Mp. On the other hand, press on and use the Hebrew as a converter for the Roman tongue, for this list, along with the “Sigla et compendia apparatuum” (pp. xliv-1) is the key to the mysteries of the marginalia in BHS. With slight effort the door will open.
Special attention should be given to Weil’s own directions for using the Mp (pp. xiii-xviii). Since many of the dotted letters in the margins are Hebrew numerals, it will repay the student to memorize the basic numerical equivalents given in any grammar. Once this Hebrew method of numerical notation is
10 See Ginsburg, Introduction, 425-68, on the conflicting data in the Masorah. On early concern for preparation of a critical edition of the masorab magna, see Paul Ernst Kahle’s classic work on the textual history of the Old Testament, The Cairo Geniza, 2d ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1959), 134.
understood, the facts in the margins will be meaningful and many of them appreciated at a glance.
The reader may have perceived with some disappointment and chagrin that most writers on introductory matters to the MT give only a slight orientation on the marginal notations. One or two examples are usually presented, but these are, in the nature of the case, quite simple and hardly representative of the gamut of masoretic notation. The following paragraphs, therefore, present a detailed explanation of all the masoretic notations in the margin of B H S for Gen. l:l-6, in the hope that students may have a broader appreciation of what they may expect to find in these marginalia and may know how to proceed in evaluating the data presented.
CI R C E L L U S
Genesis l:l-6
The first thing to note is a small circle ( ’ ) called a circellus (see the “Pro- legomena,” BHS, xvii-xviii. Almost every line of text contains one or more of these circelli. These circelli (hereafter cited in roman font) signal the marginal notations.
In Gen. 1:l the first circellus is above the expression n’r?KTT. The first letter in the Masorah is ;i, the dot indicating that this is a numeral, in this case 5, since 3 is the fifth letter in the alphabet. The ?I is the numeral 3 followed by the abbreviation D”y (see p. lv=initium versus). Of the five occurrences of this form, three are at the beginning of a verse. Then it is stated that the form is used two of these times in the middle of a verse (b”t9 3 1). The period separates this set of data from the next set. The superscript numerals 1 and 2 refer to the Mm, and its pertinent sections are cited in the first apparatus.
“Mm 1” will reveal that the five occurrences are Gen. 1:l; Jer. 26:l; 27:l; 28:l;
49:34. The next circellus appears between the two words al$‘le My?. This means that this syntactical combination is discussed in the margin, where the Masorah states that this combination appears three times in the Pentateuch (iln). The reason for this notation becomes clear when it is recalled that rhe more frequent form is the name ?!?T in conjunction with some form of the verb My?.
The next three circelli again mark a combination (see p. xvii). The first abbreviation is the numeral 15 signifying that the combination nN1 ~lnti? t#
DM? occurs thirteen times. But this observation is followed by the notation
@??a 31. Here the 1 is adversative and the 5 is the abbreviation for n?L, signify- ing “does not occur elsewhere” (see p. xvi). The uniqueness of the entire expression is specified by what follows: @?Z; the 2 here is a preposition fol- lowed by the abbreviation @5, which means “in the form (as cited in the text).’
52 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study The Hebrew Old Testament 53 Apart from the information in Weil’s Massora Gedolah, a glance at a con-
cordance will quickly reveal a number of passages. Choose one and compare the pointing of the Hebrew with the pointing in Gen. 1:l.
In 1:2 the first circellus calls attention to the form fly?>, which appears eight times “at the beginning of a verse.” According to the notation on the phrase
?;i=1] In’n, this combination occurs only one other time, namely, Jer. 4:23. The notation on Tpjiil in 1:2 is of grammatical interest. The scribes note that the form y@n) employed here appears only once elsewhere. The reason for this notation is clear when a related form p&‘ii; (y&fin!) is seen in Prov. lo:19 and 11:24. The latter is the participle of Y@I. The Mm notes that Job 38:19 is the only other passage in which the form l@l! is used. Notations like this helped the masoretes maintain their extraordinarily high level of accuracy. The combination tIi>p 'Jf+?Y appears only twice (see Prov. 8:27). The combina- tion P’l;lSe nn) appears only one other time in precisely the form cited in Gen. 1:2: as the upper apparatus notes, see 2 Chr. 24:20. The Masorah parva goes on to note that in Samuel the combination is common, except for five instances in which the tetragrammaton occurs. The term npD11p is a hapax legomenon. The notation next to the third line of Hebrew text alerts the scribe not to drop the phrase specified on the assumption that it is a duplication.
This is the one place that it appears in this form. According to the Mp, in 1:3, the phrase P’;ri+e lg&v! occurs twenty-five times. We may infer that copyists are being alerted not to be misled by the more usual use of the tetragrammaton with the verb of saying. The combination 7iM ';I: appears only in Gen. 1:3.
In 1:4 the masoretes note that this hiphil form 57?9? occurs only three times.
In the fifth line the Masorah states that the form lib?! is used seven times.
The form yt@il appears only here, the Mm noting that the form in Job 28:3 is prefaced by a lumedh. The phrase y!v Pi' is used ten times in the Pentateuch, and two of those times at the end of a verse. The phrase P’$?c l#*? in 1:6 is annotated as noted above, but with the additional note that the accentua- tion (jtn,, see p. lii; with munach and zaqeph qaton) differs here and in two other places in this section (j’Y; see 1:20 and 26) from the twenty-six other occurrences of the phrase. Genesis 1:20 and 26 contain the other two instances.
The probable reason for the latter notation, as Ginsburg points out, is to safeguard the reading against conformation to the other seven instances in which the munach is followed by rebhia: Gen. 1:9,11,14,24,29; 9:12; 17:19?1
Throughout the Hebrew Bible the meticulous concerns of the masoretes are evident. The Masorah has codified many of these phenomena, and most books on Old Testament introduction discuss, in varying detail, the more sig- nificant classifications. Robert H. Pfeiffer, who plows at length with Ginsburg’s work, has one of the more lucid and comprehensive discussions in this area (Introduction, 79-97).
SU S P E N D E D LE T T E R S
The lengths to which the masoretes went in their passionate concern for the preservation of a textual tradition is clear, for example, from the unusual posi- tion of certain letters (Ginsburg, Introduction, 334-47). The Masorah at Ps.
80:14 states that the peculiarity (the raised letter, in this instance ayin) in the writing of the text is one of four to be noted in the Hebrew Bible. The others are Job 38:13,1.5 and Judg. 18:30. The first three offer a raised or suspended ayin, the last a suspended nun. According to the Talmud, the suspended ayin indicates the middle letter of the Psalter. Quite possibly a tradition concern- ing a variant is here documented. In the Job passages the latter appears almost certainly to be the case, since the omission of the ayin forms the word nyq (“poor”). A slight transposition and substitution of aleph for ayin would also form P’&jt’M? (“chiefs”). The latter would fit very well in the context, but has no manuscript support to my knowledge.
IN V E R T E D NU N
Of a similar nature is the inverted nun (found nine times in manuscripts of the Hebrew text: Num. 10:35,36; Ps. 106:21-26,40 (Ginsburg, Introduction, 341-45). Pfeiffer mentions a tenth occurrence noted by a masorete at Gen.
11:32 (not in BHS)J2 According to Ginsburg, the inversions denote trans- positions of the text. But, as Roberts notes, the witness of the rabbis is not consistent, and one Jehudah ha-Nasi refused to admit any dislocations in the Sacred Scriptures, insisting that the marks (which are to be confined, he says, to the two cases in Numbers 10) were designed to show that the two verses in the Pentateuch form a separate book. His father, Simon ben Gamaliel, on the other hand, espoused the less traditional view!3
PU N C T A EX T R A O R D I N A R I A
In fifteen passages the Masoretic Text contains dots placed over certain words and letters. These dots are called puncta extraordinaria. They mark passages which the masoretes, according to Ginsburg (Introduction, 318-34), considered textually, grammatically, or exegetically questionable. Numbers 3:39 provides a typical example in the word fill@, which the Masorah notes is one of fifteen terms with such dots and that ten of them occur in the Pentateuch. The editor
11 Ginsburg, The Massorab, 4:105, para. 858. I2 Pfeiffer, Introduction, 83.
l3 Roberts, Old Testament Text, 34.
54 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study The Hebrew Old Testament 55 of BHS obligingly suggests the reason. The scribes had evidently encountered
manuscripts that did not include Aaron’s name. They did the best they could with the text, but marked it with these dots. The masoretes then preserved this bit of textual tradition, even though they may not have been aware of the reasons underlying the diacritical marking. The other passages are Gen.
16:5; 18:9; 19:33; 33:4; 37:12; Num. 9:lO; 21:30; 29:15; Deut. 29:28; 2 Sam.
19:20; Isa. 44:9; Ezek. 41:20; 46:22; Ps. 27:13.
SE B I R
In about 350 places, according to Ginsburg (Introduction, 187-96), the .manuscripts of the Old Testament reflect suspicions as to the correctness of a given reading. The word or form that would normally be expected is introduced in the margin by 1’29 (from the Aramaic 1X, “think, suppose”).
In the margin at Gen. 19:23 the masoretes note that MY: is viewed with suspicion on three occasions, and in its place the form ?MSt’ is read. The critical apparatus refers to Gen. 15:17, where t#@i;ll appears as feminine instead of masculine as in the transmitted text of 19:23. At Gen. 49:13 no masoretic reference to a textual problem is made, but BHS, as the abbreviation “Seb”
in the critical apparatus indicates, alerts the student to the fact that in this passage 5P equals 7Y. Some translations reflect awareness of the notation: The KJV, “unto Sidon” follows the Sebir reading; NRSV “at S”; RV follows the traditional text, “upon Zidon,” margin “by.”
KE T H I B H A N D QE R E
The masoretes were extremely loath to undertake emendations of the text, but called attention to probable corruptions by suggesting in their notes what they considered the correct reading. These readings are accompanied by a 3 or ip, that is, qere, that which is to be called or read in place of what is writtenJ4 The latter is termed the ketbibh. Thus in the margin at Josh. 8:ll we read 1'35 with a 5 beneath it. This means that in place of 12'2 the form 1'~'~ is to be read. The vowel pointings for the qere form are given under the kethibh.
Certain words are known as perpetual qeres. Thus m;! is read NY;! through- out the Pentateuch. The tetragrammaton ;1!72 is usually to be read yi&
Likewise the perpetual qere for the kethibh P@Tll is &~fa~ ; for l?Fdt'rql?, the perpetual qere is y$‘?.
l4 See Ginsburg, Introduction, 183-86; Harry M. Orlinsky, “The Origin of the Kethib-Qere System: A New Approach:’ in Congress Volume: Oxford 19S9, Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 184-92.
XQQUNE SO P H E R I M A N D IT T U R E SO P H E R I M
Alhough most of the masoretic tradition documents a conservative approach, there appears here and there to be evidence of textual alteration. These altera- tions are of two kinds. The first consist of D7DD lJl?n or “corrections of the scribes,” designed chiefly to safeguard the divine majesty. Thus in Gen. 18:22 the student will note in the apparatus the abbreviation “Tiq soph.” The original reading, as alleged by tradition, was not: “And Abraham remained standing before the Lord,” but “The Lord remained standing before Abraham.” Since the word “to stand before another” can also mean “to serve” (see Gen. 41:46;
1 Kings 1:2), it was felt that the term was unworthy of God and the text was altered accordingly. So in Num. 11:15 Moses is made to refer to his own wretchedness rather than to that of YahwehJs
In a few cases the traditional text appears to suggest that somewhere along the line scribes nodded at their work. These oversights, or what are termed
“omissions of the scribes,” P?5D ~7PY, are treated as follows. When it appears that the traditional text is defective in a word, the masoretes introduce into the text the vowel points of the word they think is missing. But they do not dare to emend the consonantal text. In the margin they then cite the omitted word and state that it is to be “read, though not written,” 3??~ N?l '13. Thus in 2 Sam. 8:3 the last part of the verse consists of a shewa and a qamets. The margin states that nlTI) is to be read with the pointing suggested in the text.
In 2 Sam. 16:23 a chireqh is noted under a maqqepb. The margin states that ti’# is to be read.
When it appears that the traditional text includes material that inadvertently intruded itself, the masoretes note that the expression in question is indeed written but is not to be read. The vowel points are therefore omitted in the biblical text but the consonants retained. A patent instance is the dittography of the consonantal 111' in Jer. 51:3. (See also Ezek. 48:16.)
ST A T I S T I C S
Other indications of the painstaking labors of the scribes and masoretes appear here and there in the Masorah. The margin at Lev. 8:8 states that this verse
‘I Wiirthwein 18-19 W E Barnes, who treats all the . . . tiqqune sopberim in “Ancient Correc-
tions in the T&x; of the Old Testament (Tikkun Sopherim),” JTS 1 (1900): 387-414, concludes
that the masoretes have preserved not attempted corrections but homiletical and exegetical comments. Other tiqqunin are: Num. 12:12; 1 Sam. 3:13; 2 Sam. 16:12; 2O:l; Jer. 2:ll; Ezek.
8:17; Has. 4:7; Hab. 1:12; Zech. 2:12; Mal. 1:12; Ps. 106:20; Job 7:20; 32:3; Lam. 3:20. Most of these are discussed in BHS. See also Ginsburg, Introduction, 347-63; but especially Cannel McCarthy, The Tiqqune Sopberim and Other Theological Corrections in the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 36 (Freiburg, Switzerland: Universir&verlag;
GGttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981).