{"id":786,"date":"2020-06-08T04:51:05","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T01:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/?page_id=786"},"modified":"2022-12-26T13:06:53","modified_gmt":"2022-12-26T11:06:53","slug":"missing-cholam","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/tetragrammaton\/missing-cholam\/","title":{"rendered":"The Missing Cholam on the Tetragrammaton"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u21e2 Back to Main Page<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Adonai<\/a>
\u02beA\u0306d\u0331o\u0304na\u0304y<\/span> with no Cholam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nehemia Gordon is the most influential contemporary arguer for the pronunciation Y\u0259ho\u0304va\u0302<\/span>. In his opinion, the form \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b9\u05b8\u05d4<\/span> represents the original vocalization of the Tetragrammaton, and the Masoretic scribes removed the cholam<\/em> (the long vowel o\u0304<\/span>, written as a dot the top left of a letter in the Tiberian pointing system [like \u25cc\u05b9<\/span>, in which \u25cc<\/span> represents any Hebrew letter]) in order to change the vocalization enough to remind people that they aren\u2019t supposed to be pronouncing the Name aloud. The dropping of the cholam<\/em> from the name serves to make the name unpronounceable (ineffible), serving as a visual reminder to the reader not to pronounce the name as it is written when reading aloud\u2014and concealing the full pronunciation from the eye of the reader.<\/p>\n

This is partially true on the face of it. The cholam<\/em> has been removed as a reminder that this name is extremely sacred and that the reader should elevate her thoughts when reading the name (whether she pronounces it aloud or only in her mind). But there is more to it than what we are led to believe, and the purpose of the Masoretes in removing the cholam<\/em> was not to hide the pronunciation Y\u0259ho\u0304va\u0302<\/span> from our eyes. Indeed, it is not the name \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4<\/span> that the Masoretes altered in the first place. The Tetragrammaton simply received this alteration on the basis of its copying the vowels from \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span> as a qere perpetuum<\/em>, as discussed in another part of this presentation. Rather, the name \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span> is where it began. There are about 435 instances of the word \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span> \u02bea\u0306d\u0331o\u0304na\u0304y<\/span> in the Hebrew Bible that refer to God, of which 371 are extant in the Aleppo Codex. The Masoretes did two things to remind us that these are referring to God and that we must elevate our thinking when we encounter them: (1) they changed the normal first-person personal suffix from patach<\/em> to qamats<\/em> (going from \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b7\u05d9<\/span> to \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span>); and, (2) they removed the cholam<\/em> from the word (going finally from \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span> to \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span>). If you check the Aleppo Codex, you will see that 97% of extant instances of the word are missing the cholam<\/em>, in the same way that the name \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b8\u05d4<\/span> is missing the cholam<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gordon has yet to address the fact that the cholam<\/em> is missing not only from the Tetragrammaton in the Masoretic Bible, but also from \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span> (consistently in the Aleppo Codex) and from \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b4\u05d4<\/span> (consistently in the Leningrad Codex, whereas the Aleppo Codex leaves the cholam<\/em> on \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b9\u05b4\u05d4<\/span> in all instances [since it never removes it from \u05d0\u05b1\u05dc\u05b9\u05d4\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd<\/span> \u02bee\u0306lo\u0304hi\u0302m<\/span>]). We find in 97% of extant instances of \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span> \u02bea\u0306d\u0331o\u0304na\u0304y<\/span> (not<\/span> \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b7\u05d9<\/span> \u02bea\u0306d\u0331o\u0304nay<\/span>) in the Aleppo Codex that the name is written as \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span> (missing the cholam<\/em>). This seems really odd, and we must understand why this happens to understand why the Tetragrammaton is also missing the same cholam<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Vocalizations of \u05d0\u05d3\u05e0\u05d9<\/span> in Biblical Hebrew<\/h3>\n

The word \u05d0\u05d3\u05e0\u05d9<\/span> (alef-dalet-nun-yod) can be pointed (vocalized) three different ways in Hebrew. First, it can be from the singular form \u05d0\u05b8\u05d3\u05d5\u05b9\u05df<\/span> \u02bea\u0304d\u0331o\u0304n<\/span> \u201clord\u201d with a first-person singular personal suffix, looking like \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9<\/span> \u02bea\u0306d\u0331o\u0304ni\u0302<\/span> and meaning \u201cmy lord.\u201d Second, it can be from the plural form \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd<\/span> \u02bea\u0306d\u0331o\u0304ni\u0302m<\/span> \u201clords\u201d with a first-person singular personal suffix, looking like \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b7\u05d9<\/span> \u02bea\u0306d\u0331o\u0304nay<\/span> (with a short a<\/span> [patach<\/em>] in the last syllable) and meaning \u201cmy lords.\u201d Third, it can be from the plural form of \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd<\/span> \u02bea\u0306d\u0331o\u0304ni\u0302m<\/span> \u201clords\u201d used as a plural of majesty, with an altered first-person singular personal suffix, looking like \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span> \u02bea\u0306d\u0331o\u0304na\u0304y<\/span> (with a long a\u0304<\/span> [qamats<\/em>] in the last syllable).<\/p>\n

The form \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9<\/span> (with the qamats<\/em>) is reserved for referring to God. Gesenius says, under the entry \u05d0\u05b8\u05d3\u05d5\u05b9\u05df<\/span>, that \u201cthe lengthened form \u05dd\u05b8<\/span> has been put by the grammarians, so as to distinguish it from \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b9\u05e0\u05b7\u05d9<\/span> \u2018my lords,\u2019\u201d even though both forms are pronounced the same.<\/p>\n

Significance of a \u201cFull Vowel Set\u201d<\/h3>\n

As of September 2019, Nehemia Gordon and his group of text searchers had found that in 86% of the manuscripts that they had investigated, the name \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4<\/span> appeared in all instances (apparently) without the vowel cholam<\/em> (i.e., as \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b8\u05d4<\/span> rather than as the anticipated \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b9\u05b8\u05d4<\/span>). He doesn’t mean that the cholam<\/em> is found in 14% of instances of the Name, but only that 14% of the examined manuscripts have at least one<\/span> instance of the Name with the \u201cfull set of vowels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u21e2 Back to Main Page<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u21e2 Back to Main Page Nehemia Gordon is the most influential contemporary arguer for the pronunciation Y\u0259ho\u0304va\u0302. In his opinion, the form \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b9\u05b8\u05d4 represents the original vocalization of the Tetragrammaton, and the Masoretic scribes removed the cholam (the long vowel o\u0304, written as a dot the top left of a letter in the Tiberian pointing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":343,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-786","page","type-page","status-publish"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2478,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/786\/revisions\/2478"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}