Tuesday, January 2, 2024

The strange thing about Straw

(ה:ז)
וְקֹשְׁשׁוּ לָהֶם תֶּבֶן

At the end of a פסוק or at an אתנחתא, we find that שֶמֶן becomes שָמֶן and אֶבֶן becomes אָבֶן but for some odd reason תֶּבֶן does not become תָּבֶן. I did a little fishing around in a Concordance and I came up with a theory that perhaps we do not modify the word if it will appear to change its meaning. This theory is based on איוב י"ג:א שָׁמְעָה אָזְנִי, וַתָּבֶן לָהּ where the word is from the root בינה, understanding.
However, others have suggested otherwise.
Please see the comments for further discussion on the topic.








Anonymous MG said...
R' Yaakov Kaminetsky suggests an explanation for this in his sefer Emes L'Yaakov.
If you don't have this sefer, you should buy it. R' Yaakov was the last great American dikduk expert and he addresses many questions regarding dikduk and "trop" in the Torah.
December 15, 2008 11:41 PM
Blogger Avromi said...
Reb Yaakov says that it is because then people might make a mistake and think that he is saying "taven" with a "vav" instead of a "veis."

yasherkoach on the mareh makom
December 15, 2008 11:49 PM

11 comments:

elie said...

יש מילים כמו נדר
תבן
מלך
ועוד שאינם נהיים קמץ בסוף פסוק.

Avromi said...

emes as well

Anonymous said...

no coparison
אינו דומה כלל
המילה אֲמת האל"ף מנוקדת בחטף סגול שהיא כמו שוא
ואין היא משתנה בנטיה לקמץ

Avromi said...

You are right:

on a different note, can you explain me please the Gaon's opinion that after a melupum (shuruk) vav in the beginning of a word, the shva following it will be a nach, and even though the letters afterwards (beged kefes) will be without a dagesh? And why is u'veshachbecha an exception to that?

Is the following the correct answer? Every Shuruk in the beginning of a word is really a kubutz under an invisible nonexistent letter before the word. Since there is no way to write it other than the vav/shuruk, it is really a kubutz that just looks like a shuruk.

Thanks

Lion of Zion said...

a lot of the so-called exceptions when we ordinarily expect a pausal form are due to the underlying forms of the words (e.g., qitl vs. qatl).

in the case of מלך, one suggestion is that there is no malekh (or rather molekh) because of confusion with the pagan diety. see Steven E. Fassberg, מדוע אין מוציאים מלך בהפסק במסורת טבריה למקרא in לשוננו, vol. 64 [2002].

In general on pausal forms, see Israel Ben-David, צורות הקשר וצורות הפסק בעברית שבמקרא [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995]

שבוע טוב

Anonymous said...

אינני יכול לקבל את ההסבר של
תֹבן תי"ו בחולם או מולך מ' בחולם
יותר טוב בלי הסבר כלל

Lion of Zion said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lion of Zion said...

sorry i wasn't clear. i didn't intend to draw any parallels between תבן and מלך. i only mentioned מלך as an afterthought because it was mentioned in one of the other comments as another exception. according to fasssberg (iirc), in tiberian pronounciation there could have been confusion between the pausal form of מלך and the pagan diety. (think of this as an academic drush that parallels the traditional explanation for mi kamokha vs. mi khamokha in az yashir).

as far as תבן: iirc, nouns that derive from a qatl form have pausal forms with the kamatz (e.g., gefen, delet, kesef, etc.). nouns that derive from a qitl form may have the kamatz (e.g., beged, beten, etc.) or may not (e.g., tzedek, kerev, etc.).

according to fassberg, תבן derives from a qitl form and thus one should not necessarily expect a kamatz in pausal form. (with תבן, though, there is no direct evidence from hebrew itself that it is from qitl).

kol tuv

Anonymous said...

נכון לפי התימנים עד היום קוראים "מלך" כאילו כתוב בשני פתחין MALAKH
ואם יהיה שם קמץ יקראו מלך כמו צורת עבר מָלַךְ אלא שמלך בעבר הוא מלעיל. עם זאת קשה לי לקבל את זה
גם ההסבר על מי כָּמוכה שהזכרת אינני מקבל רק כפרפרת

Anonymous said...

טעיתי מקודם מלך בעבר הוא מלרע כמובן
אינני יודע איך מתקנים.

ELIE said...

בעניין דעת הגר"א על וי"ו החיבור לפני שווא
או לפני אותיות במפ
הוי"ו הזו היא בתנועה קטנה קיבוץ או שורק
או איך שתקראו לזה
במלה ובשכבך בקריאת שמע
יש טועים בגלל הגעיא שהבי"ת אחרי הוי"ו היא בשווא נע
וזו טעות יש געיות (מתגים) שאינם עושים את השווא אחריהם לשווא נע
הגר"א נתכוון למין אחר של געיות