§ 3. Grammatical Treatment of the Hebrew language.
Gesenius, Gesch. der hebr. Sprache, §§ 19–39); Oehler's article, 'Hebr. Sprache,' in Schmld's Encykl. des ges. Erziehungs- u. Unterrichtswesens, vol. iii. p. 346 ff. (in the 2nd ed. revised by Nestle, p. 314 ff.). Cf. also the literature cited above in the headings of §§ 1 and 2; also Böttcher, Lehrb. der hebr. Spr., i. Lpz. 1866, p. 30 ff.; L. Geiger, Das Studium der Hebr. Spr. in Deutschl. vom Ende des XV. bis zur Mitte des XVI. Jahrh., Breslau, 1870; B. Pick, 'The Study of the Hebrew Language among Jews and Christians,' in Bibliotheca Sacra, 1884, p. 450 ff., and 1885, p. 470 ff.; W. Bacher, article 'Grammar' in the Jew. Encyclopaedia, vol. vi, Now York and London, 1904. Cf. also the note on d.
E. F. K. Rosenmüller already (Handbuch für d. Liter. der bibl. Kritik u. Exegese, 1797, i. 247; Vorrede zur Stereotyp-Ausg. des A. T., Lpz. 1834) maintained that our O. T. text was derived from Codices belonging to a single recension. J. G. Sommer (cf. Cornill, ZAW. 1892, p. 309), Olshausen (since 1853), and especially De Lagarde (Proverbien, 1863, p. 1 ff.), have even made it probable that the original Masoretic text was derived from a single standard manuscript. Cf., however, E. König in Ztschr. f. kirchl. Wiss., 1887, p. 279 f., and especially his Einleitung ins A. T., p. 88 ff. Moreover a great many facts, which will be noticed in their proper places, indicate that the Masora itself is by no means uniform but shows clear traces of different schools and opinions; cf. H. Strack in Semitic Studies in memory of … Kohut, Berlin, 1897, p. 563 ff. An excellent foundation for the history of the Masora and the settlement of the masoretic tradition was laid by Joh. Buxtorf in his Tiberias seu Commentarius Masorethicus, first published at Basel in 1620 as an appendix to the Rabbinical Bible of 1618 f. For more recent work see Geiger, Jüdische Ztschr., iii. 78 ff., followed by Harris in JQR. i. 128 ff., 243 ff.; S. Frensdorff, Ochla W'ochla, Hanover, 1864; and his Massar. Wörtsrb., part i, Hanover and Lpz. 1876; and Ch. D. Ginsburg, The Massora compiled from Manuscripts, &c., 3 vols., Lond. 1880 ff., and Introduction to the Massoretico-critical edition of the Hebr. Bible, Lond. 1897 (his text, reprinted from that of Jacob b. c
HÍayyiÖm [Venice, 1534–5] with variants from MSS. and the earliest editions, was published in 2 vols. at London in 1894, 2nd ed. 1906; a revised edition is in progress); H. Hyvernat, 'La langue et le langage de la Massore' (as a mixture of New-Hebrew and Aramaic), in the Revue biblique, Oct. 1903, p. 529 ff. and B: 'LexiqueMassoreÃtique ,' ibid., Oct. 1904, p. 521 ff., 1905, p. 481 ff., and p. 515 ff. In the use of the Massora for the critical construction of the Text, useful work has been done especially by S. Baer, in the editions of the several books (only Exod.-Deut. have still to appear), edited from 1869 conjointly with Fr. Delitzsch, and since 1891 by Baer alone. Cf. also § 7 h.
The various readings of theQereÖ (see § 17) form one of the oldest and most. important parts of the Masora. The punctuation of the Text, however, is not to be confounded with the compilation of the Masora. The former was settled at an earlier period, and is the result of a much more exhaustive labour than the Masora, which was not completed till a considerably later time.
From these earliest grammarians are derived many principles of arrangement and technical terms, some of which are still retained, e. g. the naming of the conjugations and weak verbs according to the paradigm ofl[p , certain voces memoriales, astp;K.d>g:B. and the like.3
The chief requirements for one who is treating the grammar of an ancient language are — (1) that he should observe as fully and accurately as possible the existing linguistic phenomena and describe them, after showing their organic connexion (the empirical and historico-critical element); (2) that he should try to explain these facts, partly by comparing them with one another and by the analogy of the sister languages, partly from the general laws of philology (the logical element).
The causes of unintentional corruption in the great majority of cases are: — Interchange of similar letters, which has sometimes taken place in the early 'Phoenician' writing; transposition or omission of single letters, words, or even whole sentences, which are then often added in the margin and thence brought back into the text in the wrong place; such omission is generally due to homoioteleuton (cf. Ginsburg, Introd., p. 171 ff.), i. e. the scribe's eye wanders from the place to a subsequent word of the same or similar form. Other causes are dittography, i. e. erroneous repetition of letters, words, and even sentences; its opposite, haplography; and lastly wrong division of words (cf. Ginsburg, Introd., p. 158 ff.), since at a certain period in the transmission of the text the words were not separated.7 — Intentional changes are due to corrections for the sake of decency or of dogma, and to the insertion of glosses, some of them very early.
Advance in grammar is therefore closely dependent on progress in textual criticism. The systematic pursuit of the latter has only begun in recent years: cf. especially Doorninck on Ju 1–16, Leid. 1879; Wellhausen, Text der Bb. Sam., Gött. 1871; Cornill, Ezechiel, Lpz. 1886; Klostermann, Bb. Sam. u. d. Kön., Nördl. 1887; Driver, Notes on the Hebr. text of the Books of Sam., Oxf. 1890; Klostermann, Deuterojesaja, Munich, 1893; Oort, Textus hebr. emendationes, Lugd. 1900; Burney on Kings, Oxf. 1903; the commentaries of Marti and Nowack; the Internat. Crit. Comm.; Kautzsch, Die heil. Schriften des A. T.2, 1909–10. A critical edition of the O. T. with full textual notes, and indicating the different documents by colours, is being published in a handsome form by P. Haupt in The Sacred Books of the Old Test., Lpz. and Baltimore, 1893 ff. (sixteen parts have appeared: Exod., Deut., Minor Prophets, and Megilloth are still to come); Kittel, Biblia hebraica2, 1909, Masoretic text from Jacob b.
Footnotes:
1[1] On the name Masora (or Massora, as e. g. E. König, Einleitung in das A. T., p. 38 ff.; Lehrgeb. d. hebr. Sprache, ii. 358 ff.), and the great difficulty of satisfactorily explaining it, cf. De Lagarde, Mitteilungen, i. 91 ff. W. Bacher's derivation of the expression (in JQR. 1891, p. 785 ff.; so also C. Levias in the Hebrew Union College Annual, Cincinnati, 1904, p. 147 ff.) from Ez 20:37 (