Noting this mistake, the Masoretes left the second hames without vowel pointing, indicating that the word should be omitted altogether in the reading. In 1QIsa, Isaiah 30:30 reads hasmià hasmià ("Hear, hear"), instead of the single hasmià that appears in the MT and is attested by the versions.
Another example of probable dittography occurs in Isaiah 9:6-7 (Isa. 9:5-6
Hebrew), which reads at the end of v.5 sar-salom ("prince of peace") and at the beginning of v.6 lemarbeh hammisrah ("of the increased of government"). Now this makes perfectly good sense in Hebrew as it stands, but there is one peculiar feature about the spelling of lemarbeh . The m (mem) is written in the special form that occurs at the end of a word. This clearly indicates that the Sopherim scribes found two different traditions concerning this reading: one that read only salom (at the end of v.5) and began v.6 with r-b-h (which should be vocalized as rabbah , "great"; i.e., "Great shall be the government").
A final example of dittography is taken from the last verse of Psalm 23: "And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." As pointed by the Masoretes, the verb form wesabti would have to mean "And I will return [to the house]"--as if the psalmist had left the Lord's house and now expected to return to it permanently. But if the consonants are pointed wesibti , then we have the reading of the LXX: kai to katoikein me ("And my dwelling" [will be in the house]). This is rather unusual from the standpoint of Hebrew style, even though it is by no means impossible. Perhaps the most attractive option, however, is to understand this word as a case of haplography. With the introduction of the square Hebrew form of the alphabet after the return from Babylonian 23
Exile, the shape of w (waw) greatly resembled that of y (yodh); and by the period of 1QIsa, it often happened that a long-tailed yodh looked precisely like a short-tailed waw.
That being the case, it would be easy for haplography to occur whenever a yodh and a waw occurred together. The Greek copyist, then, might have seen what looked like two waw's together and figured that this was mistake for a single waw, and hence left out the second one--which actually should have been a yodh. If this reconstruction is correct, then the original wording used by David was weyasabti , meaning, "And I will dwell,"
expressed in the normal and customary Hebrew way.
3. Metathesis
This involves an inadvertent exchange in the proper order of letters or words. For example, 1QIsa has at the end of Isaiah 32:19 the phrase "the forest will fall" rather than MT's corrected reading "the city is leveled completely." It so happens that the word for
"forest" ( yaàr ) is written with the same consonants as the word for "city" ( ìr ). Since the verb tispal ("is leveled completely") is in the feminine and yaàr is masculine, the word for "city"--which is feminine--is the only possible reading. But the confusion of the Isaiah-scroll scribe is understandable since the word yaàr does occur in the preceding clause of this verse: "though hail flattens the forest [ hayyaàr ]."
In Ezekiel 42:16, however, it is obviously the MT that is the error, reading, "five cubits rods" ( hames-emot qanim ) instead of "five hundred rods" ( hames me'ot qanim ), which is the correction indicated by the Masoretes by having their vowel points go with the word for "hundreds" rather than with the word for "cubits." The LXX, the Latin Vulgate, and all the other versions read "five hundred" here rather than "five cubits."
4. Fusion
This consists of combining the last letter of the first word with the first letter of the following word, or else of combining two separate words into a single compound word. A probable example of the latter type is found in Amos 6:12, where the MT reads,
"Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow with oxen?" Obviously a farmer does plow with oxen, whereas horses do not run on rocky crags. Now it is
Another example of probable dittography occurs in Isaiah 9:6-7 (Isa. 9:5-6
Hebrew), which reads at the end of v.5 sar-salom ("prince of peace") and at the beginning of v.6 lemarbeh hammisrah ("of the increased of government"). Now this makes perfectly good sense in Hebrew as it stands, but there is one peculiar feature about the spelling of lemarbeh . The m (mem) is written in the special form that occurs at the end of a word. This clearly indicates that the Sopherim scribes found two different traditions concerning this reading: one that read only salom (at the end of v.5) and began v.6 with r-b-h (which should be vocalized as rabbah , "great"; i.e., "Great shall be the government").
A final example of dittography is taken from the last verse of Psalm 23: "And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." As pointed by the Masoretes, the verb form wesabti would have to mean "And I will return [to the house]"--as if the psalmist had left the Lord's house and now expected to return to it permanently. But if the consonants are pointed wesibti , then we have the reading of the LXX: kai to katoikein me ("And my dwelling" [will be in the house]). This is rather unusual from the standpoint of Hebrew style, even though it is by no means impossible. Perhaps the most attractive option, however, is to understand this word as a case of haplography. With the introduction of the square Hebrew form of the alphabet after the return from Babylonian 23
Exile, the shape of w (waw) greatly resembled that of y (yodh); and by the period of 1QIsa, it often happened that a long-tailed yodh looked precisely like a short-tailed waw.
That being the case, it would be easy for haplography to occur whenever a yodh and a waw occurred together. The Greek copyist, then, might have seen what looked like two waw's together and figured that this was mistake for a single waw, and hence left out the second one--which actually should have been a yodh. If this reconstruction is correct, then the original wording used by David was weyasabti , meaning, "And I will dwell,"
expressed in the normal and customary Hebrew way.
3. Metathesis
This involves an inadvertent exchange in the proper order of letters or words. For example, 1QIsa has at the end of Isaiah 32:19 the phrase "the forest will fall" rather than MT's corrected reading "the city is leveled completely." It so happens that the word for
"forest" ( yaàr ) is written with the same consonants as the word for "city" ( ìr ). Since the verb tispal ("is leveled completely") is in the feminine and yaàr is masculine, the word for "city"--which is feminine--is the only possible reading. But the confusion of the Isaiah-scroll scribe is understandable since the word yaàr does occur in the preceding clause of this verse: "though hail flattens the forest [ hayyaàr ]."
In Ezekiel 42:16, however, it is obviously the MT that is the error, reading, "five cubits rods" ( hames-emot qanim ) instead of "five hundred rods" ( hames me'ot qanim ), which is the correction indicated by the Masoretes by having their vowel points go with the word for "hundreds" rather than with the word for "cubits." The LXX, the Latin Vulgate, and all the other versions read "five hundred" here rather than "five cubits."
4. Fusion
This consists of combining the last letter of the first word with the first letter of the following word, or else of combining two separate words into a single compound word. A probable example of the latter type is found in Amos 6:12, where the MT reads,
"Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow with oxen?" Obviously a farmer does plow with oxen, whereas horses do not run on rocky crags. Now it is
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