B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Hello all,

I noticed some superscripted alephs in the Kere readings of Judges 19:13 and 19:21. I'm reading from a hard-copy of BHS. What do they mean?

-Andrew Hodge

Can you explain what you mean?
(or maybe upload a picture of what you see?)

I don't see any Kere readings nor any superscripted alephs in BHS for either verse.

In verse 13, we have the קרי reading as לכה with a little raised alef on the left side of it. Similarly, in 21, we have ויבל with a little raised alef. It's in the right margin, not in the footnotes (appartus).

I am really not sure what it would mean. I don't pay too much attention to the right/left margin of the page. I also don't have access to where to find that information.

Thanks Jason, I see it now. I hadn't looked in the side margin.
BibleWorks BHS does not show the aleph superscript.
Aleph is supposed to mean Aleppo codex. I looked up the verses in Aleppo, but did not see the indicated qere's in the margin there.

There is a Qere in verse 21.
The Ktiv is ויבול and the Qere is ויבל.

In verse 13 there is no Qere, but I guess that the note tells you to understand the word לך as לכה (which is the common way of spelling this word in this meaning). But I don't see any Qere for that word.

Do these verses in the BHS get the same note or different ones?
Can you please show an image of that page?

ducky wrote: Do these verses in the BHS get the same note or different ones?
Can you please show an image of that page?

David, Here are the relevant parts of the BHS page.
(The whole page was too big to attach.)
As Jason pointed out, the ק with the dot above it in the left margin is the qere. The qere reading is above the ק.

We've been deceived by bad ink on the page. It's the number 8 in both instances.

In verse 10, we see a superscript 7. In verse 13, we see a superscript 8 and superscript 9. In verse 15, we have superscript 10 and 11, then 12 in is verse 16 and 13 in verse 17, et cetera. It's ink missing from the top and bottom of the 8 that looks like alef - and the same thing in verse 21, where it's 7 and 8 again.

I saw this when I magnified it with my camera. It's not alef at all.

Jason,

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that insight. Having just moved, my BHS is in a box and I can't check it at the moment. That does seem to still make sense looking at the pictures from Steve.

What does "Q addidi" mean? Also, the text critical notes are saying that at least some manuscripts support this Qere reading.

Thanks, Jason! Great detective work.