Is this a defective feminine plural, or what?

[ducky]

Hello Karl,

If you asked me, instead of just assuming, I would have said that I know very little modern Israeli Hebrew. I’ve read certain things about modern Israeli Hebrew, including its basic grammar, enough to know that its grammar is significantly different from that of Biblical Hebrew. Now I think that not knowing modern Israeli Hebrew is an advantage, in that my understanding of Biblical Hebrew is not corrupted by cross-fertilization from modern Israeli Hebrew. I cannot read modern Israeli Hebrew. Modern Israeli Hebrew is a strange, unknown language to me, harder to read and understand than Yiddish (and I never studied Yiddish).

So I don't know what to tell you. If you're interested, try again. It is way easier than Biblical Hebrew, and you would find out that it is not so different than what you think. But I can't persuade you only by these words.

Definitely not for the verbs, and how much others have changed as well?

the verbal system is actually the same as Biblical. Same conjugations, and same behavior.

I’ve been told otherwise by Israelis, including well-educated Israelis. They may be able to read it, but understanding it is a different matter. That’s why there is now a translation of Tanakh into modern, Israeli Hebrew.

As I said, the prose is very easy to understand to the average man. the Modern-Israeli translation wasn't created by demand. It was made by a guy who has "pure-love" to Modern Hebrew (I know that because he's on twitter and we used to talk to each other). It is just another translation as an interpretation that also was criticized a lot since it makes the kids not to focus on the Biblical text.
And once again, I can't persuade you with my words, but If you don't believe me, you can buy it and compare the verbal system of the Modern with the Biblical. And you can also analyze the syntax to see that it is way more simple.

I think we should close this subject about Modern vs. Biblical.

I learned the Akkadian meaning online here from another member of this forum. That was several years ago, and I don’t remember who that was.

And you didn't check it?
I checked in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and didn't find something like this.
You can check it online. If you can show me that, It would be interesting, but still, it would be very weak support.

Isaiah 38:13 “Until the morning I likened my writhing (twisting my body out of shape) such that it should shatter all my bones (in other words, he was very violent in his actions), from day to night you cause me to be whole”

Interesting, but since you couldn't find this meaning to that root, then it has no use.

More than that, the "Lion" comes with "break" as a common combination.
1Kings 13:26 ויתנהו ה לאריה וישברהו
1Kings 13:28 לא אכל האריה...ולא שבר את החמור
Also in the DSS there is a verse about a Lion who "breaks"
So It fits more to see it he as a Lion (and also in Psalms 22)

And by the way, if I remember right, the DSS writes שפותי instead of שויתי.
ְAnyway, creative as it is, there is no such meaning, not fitter that just read it as it is.

Amos 8:8 העל זאת לא תרגז הארץ ואבל כל יושב בה ועלתה כאר כלה ונגרשה ונשקה כיאר מצרים (you misquoted the verse)
Is it not for this reason that the land should shudder and all that settle in it mourn, that injustice is that which distorts all of it, that it be driven out (pushed away) and is gone out as Egypt’s Nile.

Also interesting.
I see that you read ועלתה as "injustice" (Olatah)
and I see that you translated the כאר as a verb ("which distorts")
but how can כאר be a masculine verb for the feminine עלתה?
Something is not right.
My English is not perfect so maybe I didn't understand your sentence, but I think I did, and if so, there is a problem.

Also, you saw that in 9:5 the verse appears again, with כיאר.
ְAlso, the description of the verse calls for the meaning of Water, So I don't see any reason to not read it as it is. (and as 9:5 writes it).

The problem is that I have seen plenty of examples of what was claimed to be Biblical Hebrew, but were nothing of the sort. After many times of seeing such examples, what is the usual reaction to such claims?

I don't know what you saw.

Close, but no cigar. It’s not Biblical Hebrew. To change your sentence as little as possible yet to make it more like Biblical Hebrew, consider the following:
וילך מתן מאת עירא שמח וטוב לב ולא אחר לעשות ככל הדבר אשר שאלו עירא
Do you see how Biblical Hebrew differs from what you wrote? A subtle difference that someone whose native tongue is Modern Israeli Hebrew may not notice. But even this is not really good Biblical Hebrew.

I commented about it in my previous comment.
the form of שאל מ as "request" or "ask from/of" is Biblical.

A further distinction, the verb שאל usually refers to asking for something to be given in return, whether an answer or an object.

Indeed.
But also comes as a request.

When one asked another to do something, usually the sentence is significantly different, e.g.:
וילך מתן שמח וטוב לב מאת עירא וימהר לעשות את הכל אשר התחנן לו עירא
or something similar.

התחנן = beg.
Not a regular request or "ask" from a friend.

צוה is almost always used of a superior to an inferior, though sometimes used as a strong request, such as times that Jeremiah asked Baruch to do things for him. (The same thing is found in English, where often a request for an action is given in the form of a command.)

Yes. צוה is more of command or order.
But not a verb that we expect from friend to friend.

You should say בקש as "request" if you want.
But still, the שאל מן is Biblical as well (and any שאל מ with anything after it)

Your sentence is a perfect example of why I didn’t expect Biblical Hebrew from you and you didn’t disappoint.

Your comment didn't disappoint me as well. Since I knew (from experience) that those who claim that they know Biblical Hebrew tend to find excuses in the most creative ways.
But in this case, your excuse was wrong.

And one more thing about it.
The fact that you went and search to see if there is the *exact same combination* just shows me that you can't understand it natural.
Because even if there wasn't such a combination, you should also understand it since the שאל comes with a prefix M for the next word.
שאל מאתך
שאל מעמך
and so on...
So even if there wasn't a combination שאל מן, you'd still need to see it as a "Biblical style" since it uses the same prefix.
(and of course, the combination of שאל מן is Biblical).

But as I said, Since I have this experience from the past. Those who "excel" in Biblical Hebrew actually stick their head inside of a box. and can't realize that a language is a language and not mathematics.

The Tiberians are most remembered for their pronunciations. Therefore, that must be included.

Okay, this is interesting.
Tell me please, What is the pronunciation of the Tiberians?
How did they pronounce the Mobile Sheva?
How did they pronounce the Qamats?
How did they pronounce the Segol?
After all... "The Tiberians are most remembered for their pronunciations."

I don’t use their grammar. The Binyamin predate the Masoretes. They are found in the consonantal text.

You do use their grammar. You just don't realize that.

In Jer 5:6 there is the word יטרף.
What is the Binyan of the word יטרף and how do you read it?

“Post-Biblical” is the operative term. But this forum was designated for the study of Biblical Hebrew, not post-Biblical Hebrew.

I said once "late-Biblical more or less", and another time I said, "Since the Late-Biblical Era".
And I said that for a reason.
Language is evolved. it doesn't change itself in a day.
Also in the Biblical era, there was more than one accent (for example north and south)
And also in the post-biblical era, there was more than one accent.
And also in the era of the Masoretic people, who voweled the text, there was more than one accent.
Therefore I said what I said.

There was a city that as late as 2000 years ago in backward Galilee was still pronounced as “Yerosoluma”. That gives a clue that the original pronunciation of that city was probably “Yerewosoluma”.

This name had a lot of evolutions.
The city old pronunciation was Shalim.

You should also realize that there was was no Mobile Sheva in the first temple era.
you can check the DSS and see that they were using pausal forms in the middle of the verses. Probably they still didn't use the Mobile Sheva. (Probably).

When we look at the contexts, it becomes obvious that some of the words have the wrong vowels. The wrong vowels even according to the Masoretic system of pronunciations.

I have no problem with that. and that is exactly what I said.
By the way, I have a rare book which can be called as the biggest opposition for the Masoretic version.
it "fixes" almost every verse in the Bible in a very creative way.
Maybe I would write some stuff in our later conversations about verses since I see that you also like to "fix" the version with a creative mind.

Is it that you don’t understand me because you don’t want to understand me?

Karl, our discussion may seem to have a temper?
But don't think I am against you.
I came here to discuss and also to learn stuff that I don't know or to see stuff from other perspectives.
I'm trying to be objective as I can since I am not come to fool myself about Biblical Hebrew.
Even though I already started to write this comment, and I also wrote the previous comment with a little disrespecting style, I wish that we can take a step back and talk only about the "evidence" and not take it personally.
So please ignore my low-style in what I wrote in this comment above and what I wrote in the previous comment.

This is speculation without evidence.

Every time you see "two Segols" together, it means that it comes from a form of "qatl"/"qitl"/"qutl"

You actually see it your self.
Let's take a simple word like Horse=סוס
you say it "sus"
When you want to make it feminine, all you do is add suffix "a(h)".
(I would just use "a")
So...
Sus+a = Susa.

when you read the word Boy - ילד
you say "yeled"
but now, when we want to make it feminine (girl), we don't say "yeled+a = yeleda"
But we say "yalda" which is actually "yald+a".

Same thing with "my boy" - ילדי = "yaldi"
"Yald+i = yaldi".

Why is that?
because the original form was not "yeled" but it was "yald"
Only when this form of "yald" (qatl) stands on its own, the Hebrew broke the consonantal combination (of "ld") with a vowel.

And of course, we can also look at other Semitic languages that still use that form always.
like Hebrew's Dog is Kelev (Keleb), but in Arabic it is Kalb.
(Arabic kept these forms. And I just use Arabic because it is a common language).

More than that, I saw somewhere (and I think I could find it again), an article which brings the case of Greek pronunciation of the name אלימלך as "elimalk" (according to a script). which can support that the same Greek guy (at least) heard Malk and not Melekh.

The evolution from "qatl" to "qetel" was late (late Biblical era or later).
This case cannot testify about the exact time of this "switch" since names tend to keep their forms more than a regular noun. (And also everything is changed by evolution).
But this "switch" was kinda late.

Do you really believe that an ancient pronunciation without being written down was preserved by people whose native languages were different over a period of a millennium?

Yes. That is why I'm trying to tell.
The Bible was not some book that was known to people.
This book was read every day and every weak in public since the late Biblical time (when the religious era became stronger - At the time of Ezra).
The Masoretic people was already mentioned in the Mishna, as those who remember the text.
The Masoretic people weren't stupid, they knew the exact forms. what forms was lost and what forms were evolved. (and remember that I said that they didn't try to push to Moses's pronunciation, but to the evolved pronunciation in their time and regions (there were a few Masora systems).

Even with a pool of native speakers of a language, pronunciations change. They change more slowly if the pronunciations are written down and the people are literate, but they still change. Yet you expect me to believe that a language where the pronunciations were not written down was able to preserve its pronunciations for over a thousand years after the last native speaker died until some other non-native speakers invented a way to indicate those missing vowels? Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?

This is not what I'm trying to say.
Hebrew people spoke as they spoke, according to their way and natural evolution of their tongue.
The Masoretic were a school of Hebrew. no just "the people". that was their Job.
And don't think that I say it is all perfect. because there is no such thing.
If one finds a mistake that seems like a mistake, then Okay. I'm not their lawyer.
But even though I am not their lawyer, I can't lie and say that they were just some people who came one day to vowel the Bible.

I asked you how many times you have read Tanakh cover to cover, all the way through. You haven’t answered that question. Am I correct to assume that your silence is an answer, namely that you haven’t done so even once?

My friend, I read the Bible a few times, Not from cover to cover by its order as a reading-project. but I read it a few times. each time I study another book.
The Torah, I read it more (and Psalms also).

But please tell me, how is that important?
As I said, let's talk about the evidence.
If it's right it's right. If it's wrong it's wrong.
I don't see why it is important.
A man can read a text a hundred times and not get it, while his friend reads it two times and get it better.

As I said, I don't want to make it personal.
Also, you don't have to answer all of these questions I asked you if you don't want to.
We can leave the not-important stuff, and Focus on what is important for the Hebrew's understanding only.

[Isaac Fried]

Ducky wrote

The Modern Hebrew (MH) is indeed not the biblical Hebrew (BH), but it is, like every language, part of its evolution.
If Isaiah would come today, He wouldn't understand a lot at first, but soon enough, he would understand it all. because the basic grammatical patterns are the same.

I think you are right. The difference between "biblical" Hebrew and "modern" Hebrew is mostly that of style. "biblical" Hebrew is a written language, while "modern" Hebrew is a spoken language of mundane use. It needs to be understood clearly and instantaneously upon hearing. Prophesying about latter days, הנה ימים באים, is not the same as speaking to the bank manager, or the boss at work. In the latter we need to be less verbose, very clear as what was done, and what has still to be done, when and where.
For fluency spoken Hebrew is less "inflected", we don't say now שמענוכם but שמענו אתכם. The WAW "conversive" is also out, instead of ויגש we say now distinctly אז הוא נגש. The connecting word אשר is also out replaced by שֶ-. I would not say
זה הדבר אשר אני דורש ממך לעשות
but
זה מה שאני דורש ממך לעשות
Otherwise the "two Hebrews" are one and the same.
Hebrew also coined over time hundreds and hundreds of new words to fill the need created by modern science, technology, and new complex life styles.

I have said it before. I believe that King David, sitting leisurely in his own parlor, spoke to his wives and children "modern" Hebrew. "biblical" Hebrew he reserved for pleading and praising his God.
And there is slang. You are certainly right that Isaiah would be puzzled by a Hebrew sentence such as
יצאנו לדייט, אכלנו פיי, עשינו סקס ואחר כך סתם הסתלבטנו
but, as you say, listening to Israeli TV for a few days would make him an expert of MH.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[ducky]

David Hunter writes

The Tiberian was also a spoken accent, but it didn't last. and most of the people who had another accent adapted the Tiberian Masora but kept reading it according to their own accent. So the Grammar remained Tiberian but the pronunciation remained their own.

Where did you get all this? Is this talk about "The Tiberian was also a spoken accent, but it didn't last" based on historical facts or are we but musing here?

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Hi Isaac,
some of the Tiberian vowels were pronounced differently, and not just for beauty.
Why do you think there is Also Patah' and also Qamats?
Do we need two marks for the same vowel?

Same thing with Segol and Tsere.
Do we need two marks for the same vowel?

And also, the Mobile Sheva was not pronounced as "e" in the Tiberian accent.

[Isaac Fried]

Ducky wrote

In Jer 5:6 there is the word יטרף.
What is the Binyan of the word יטרף and how do you read it?

Here is Jer. 5:6
עַל כֵּן הִכָּם אַרְיֵה מִיַּעַר זְאֵב עֲרָבוֹת יְשָׁדְדֵם נָמֵר שֹׁקֵד עַל עָרֵיהֶם כָּל הַיּוֹצֵא מֵהֵנָּה יִטָּרֵף
What do I care what "Binyan" is יִטָּרֵף. All I need to know is that
יִטָּרֵף = היא-טרף, with היא referring to the beneficiary of the act טרף, namely, the one having the good fortune of ending as dinner for the tiger.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

Ducky wrote

And also, the Mobile Sheva was not pronounced as "e" in the Tiberian accent.

I don't think there is "Mobile Sheva" in Hebrew, unless you "move" what you want to move.

some of the Tiberian vowels were pronounced differently, and not just for beauty.
Why do you think there is Also Patah' and also Qamats?
Do we need two marks for the same vowel?

I don't know how vowels were pronounced in "Tiberias".
The assumption that different niqud markings were made to be pronounced differently may be a fallacy.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Jason Hare]

Isaac, you must agree that הוא יִשְׂרֹף and הוא יִשָּׂרֵף have different meanings! Binyan does have meaning when used in tandem with given roots.

[ducky]

Hello.

I think you are right. The difference between "biblical" Hebrew and "modern" Hebrew is mostly that of style. "biblical" Hebrew is a written language, while "modern" Hebrew is a spoken language of mundane use. It needs to be understood clearly and

I agree. The Bible is the literary language and doesn't represent the natural tongue. Exactly as Shakspeare wrote in the literary style and we wouldn't say that the people of his time spoke the way he wrote.
Or even today, there are English books that don't represent the English spoken natural language

Actually, the Mishnaic tongue represents an old biblical era dialect, that grew together with the known biblical.
The Mishnaic even use forms that are more archaic than what we see in the Bible. And also, the fact that it is more simple and with more analogies between forms tells us that it was a natural language.
Some scholars say that it represents only a second temple natural biblical tongue, while others see it even older (As I think too, but of course, the Mishnaic is also an evolution of spoken Hebrew).

For fluency spoken Hebrew is less "inflected", we don't say now שמענוכם but שמענו אתכם.

Yes. Because it is just to make it simpler.

The WAW "conversive" is also out, instead of ויגש we say now distinctly אז הוא נגש

Very nice that you wrote the word Conversive as "conversive".
And there is no need for ואז. Just והוא נגש.

The connecting word אשר is also out replaced by שֶ-. I would not say
זה הדבר אשר אני דורש ממך לעשות
but
זה מה שאני דורש ממך לעשות

ְThe ש is also Biblical, and probably more archaic than the אשר.
it is seen in the Bible as ש=Sha in the old texts ("Sha" represents an old pronunciation).
And later it is voweled as "ש=she", in the late books, which represents the evolved pronunciation.
(by the way, you can see that one of the original sounds for the Segol is the Patah'?).
The Mishnaic didn't use אשר but only ש.
in Modern Hebrew, the ש is more common than אשר which the אשר it is a higher level.

Also, when we see the Mt vowels, the "strange ones", sometimes these vowels are based on the pronunciation of another ancient dialect.
So when we look at the post-biblical Hebrew scripts who have another dialect, Sometimes this dialect is seen in the Bible, as a word is voweled in the "wrong" way.
But it is not the wrong way. the vowels represent another ancient dialect.

Also, an interesting thing. Here is a case which shows that the natural tongue of the Modern and the natural tongue of the ancient Hebrews are the same.
In the letters of Bar-Kokhva, which represent a very natural tongue. we can see that instead of writing the combination of את+ה they wrote ת.
instead of מעיד אני את השמים
it is written מעיד אני תשמים
and that is almost 2,000 years ago.
this style was never written in any book because it is very natural.
And no one even knew this style until the letters were discovered.
and even after they were discovered, only the scholars saw it and the common man doesn't even know about it.

But if you hear some modern Hebrew speaks, he does the same thing.
instead of saying את השמים he would say תשמים (and other nouns too)
(It is not considered a nice form, and it is not written, only is speak)

So the natural tongue is so natural, that we should not be surprised if we see the same styles in different eras.

Here is Jer. 5:6
עַל כֵּן הִכָּם אַרְיֵה מִיַּעַר זְאֵב עֲרָבוֹת יְשָׁדְדֵם נָמֵר שֹׁקֵד עַל עָרֵיהֶם כָּל הַיּוֹצֵא מֵהֵנָּה יִטָּרֵף
What do I care what "Binyan" is יִטָּרֵף. All I need to know is that
יִטָּרֵף = היא-טרף, with היא referring to the beneficiary of the act טרף, namely, the one having the good fortune of ending as dinner for the tiger.

I gave this example using this root, for a reason.
we were speaking about the grammar of the Masoretic and the Binyanim, and what was used and what was not.
I will wait with the answer.

I don't think there is "Mobile Sheva" in Hebrew unless you "move" what you want to move.

I don't get it. Do you say that there is no Mobile Sheva in Hebrew?
I don't even know how to react to this.
You see it and speak it.

I don't know how vowels were pronounced in "Tiberias".
The assumption that different Niqud markings were made to be pronounced differently may be a fallacy.

It is not an assumption and it is not false.
There is a reason for that.
And the fact that other Masoras addressed that too, it means that there it represents a pronunciation.
And of course, books were written about it.
And of course, you even say the names of the vowels.
Why the Patah' is called Patah'?
And why the Qamats is called Qamats?
Think about the meaning of these words, and realize what sound they represented.

[ducky]

David Hunter writes

The Tiberian was also a spoken accent, but it didn't last. and most of the people who had another accent adapted the Tiberian Masora but kept reading it according to their own accent. So the Grammar remained Tiberian but the pronunciation remained their own.

Where did you get all this? Is this talk about "The Tiberian was also a spoken accent, but it didn't last" based on historical facts or are we but musing here?

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Hello Isaac,

I would add more words to what I already said.
The most famous Masoretic man was "Ben-Asher", and he was the one who proofread the Aleppo Codex.
And he also wrote a book with explanations (it can be found online).

And in this book, he also talks about the pronunciation of the Sheva for example.
I didn't see about the Qamats and Segol, Maybe I missed, but these are mentioned in other books (that I don't know if they are online but I can picture them.

Also, there is a part in the book that he talks about the pronunciation of the R (when it is with Dagesh and when it is not). And he noted that this is a pronunciation of all Israel (in speech and in reading).
But in another Codex, this note was replaced by a note which says that it is the way of the Tiberians.
So you can see that the Tiberian pronunciation is not some "fairy-tale".

Also, in this book (and in other books) it talks about the different vowels for the same word.
For example, when someone sees that every בהן is written with Tsere, but only three cases are with Segol, he might say that there is confusion.
But He explains that this is how it should be.
And he gives a lot of exception cases, that voweled differently from the common way, and they are intentionally voweled like that from tradition.

[kwrandolph]

Greenspahn, F. (2003). An Introduction to Aramaic (2nd ed.). Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature.

Page 19:

(1) The Canaanite Shift (ā > ō) — long a usually became long o (ō) in some Northwest Semitic languages, including Hebrew. However, Aramaic belongs to a non-Canaanite group of languages, in which the original vowel (ā) is retained. A familiar example is the Hebrew word שָׁלוֹם. Both vowels in this word were once pronounced a, but the second one was long (the Arabic word is salām). In the Canaanite branch that vowel became ō, but not in Aramaic where the word is, therefore, pronounced שְׁלָם.

Greenspahn goes on to provide the following examples:

אֱנָשׁ (Aramaic) to אֱנוֹשׁ (Hebrew)
דָּר (Aramaic) to דּוֹר (Hebrew)
טָב (Aramaic) to טוֹב (Hebrew)
לָא (Aramaic) to לֹא (Hebrew)
עָלַם (Aramaic) to עוֹלָם (Hebrew)
קָל (Aramaic) to קוֹל (Hebrew)

Karl: Would you pronounce vocalic ו as something other than o? I don't know anything about how you pronounce Hebrew. To me, it's clear that קל and קול differ in vowel class. Aramaic has always maintained the reading of qal, while Hebrew has qol.

Dear Jason:

I don’t mean to be crass nor have this as a personal put-down, after all, all you did was to quote someone else.

How much of “We don’t know” don’t you know? (This is intended more as an answer to Mr. Greenspahn than you.)

As a one who is trying to be a careful researcher of Biblical Hebrew language, the more I study the more I realize that there are major areas of the language that we don’t know, and unless there’s a major find that hasn’t happened yet nor is expected to happen, we will never know. Possibly the largest such area that we don’t know and cannot know, is the Biblical era pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew. All we have is a pronunciation schema that dates from over a thousand years after the last native speaker of Biblical Hebrew died.

We have very few clues that indicate that Biblical Hebrew had a very different pronunciation than that indicated by that late pronunciation schema that to which Mr. Greenspahn refers. Examples include לבי = labaya, שלם = soluma, עמרי = oneriyi, יפת the ancient Greeks transliterated that as yapate, the ancient Romans as yupiter. There’s some indication that the begad kephat letters each had only one sound, that the sin and shin were one letter with the same sound and that what we now call matres leccionis were full fledged consonants during Biblical times. However, a few scattered clues are not sufficient upon which to base a complete pronunciation schema. Therefore, my answer is, “We don’t know.”

The same is true of Biblical era Aramaic.

Therefore, any talk of a vowel shift is mere speculation.

Karl W. Randolph.

Ps: I hope I didn’t offend you with my answer. None was intended.

[kwrandolph]

Hello Karl,

…I cannot read modern Israeli Hebrew. Modern Israeli Hebrew is a strange, unknown language to me, harder to read and understand than Yiddish (and I never studied Yiddish).

So I don't know what to tell you. If you're interested, try again. It is way easier than Biblical Hebrew, and you would find out that it is not so different than what you think. But I can't persuade you only by these words.

After getting used to Biblical Hebrew, then to look at modern Israeli Hebrew with its weird spellings, unexpected grammatical structures that don’t make sense and vocabulary that has different meanings than their Biblical counterparts, modern Israeli Hebrew is a mess. Yiddish, on the other hand, at least is consistent.

Definitely not for the verbs, and how much others have changed as well?

the verbal system is actually the same as Biblical. Same conjugations, and same behavior.

This shows that you don’t know Biblical Hebrew, as the behavior is very different.

For me the functions are important. That the forms may be the same means nothing, what count are that the functions are different.

I think we should close this subject about Modern vs. Biblical.

Good idea.

I learned the Akkadian meaning online here from another member of this forum. That was several years ago, and I don’t remember who that was.

And you didn't check it?
I checked in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and didn't find something like this.
You can check it online. If you can show me that, It would be interesting, but still, it would be very weak support.

I have never studied Akkadian and cannot read it, so when a professor (yes it was a professor) makes a claim concerning Akkadian, I accept what he says.

And by the way, if I remember right, the DSS writes שפותי instead of שויתי.
ְAnyway, creative as it is, there is no such meaning, not fitter that just read it as it is.

And what does שפותי mean? Such a word is not found elsewhere in Tanakh.

By the way, looking at the digitization of the scroll, it’s clear that the scribe who wrote it didn’t have the best handwriting. Therefore he could have meant שפיתי which was misread as שפותי. Further, the scribe could have misheard שויתי as שפיתי, hence made a simple mistake. It appears that there are good reasons that that scroll ended up in a Genizah.

Amos 8:8…and I see that you translated the כאר as a verb ("which distorts")

“…that which distorts…” is a noun phrase, not a verb. Here it is in a verbless sentence where we in English add “…is…”

Close, but no cigar. It’s not Biblical Hebrew. To change your sentence as little as possible yet to make it more like Biblical Hebrew, consider the following:
וילך מתן מאת עירא שמח וטוב לב ולא אחר לעשות ככל הדבר אשר שאלו עירא
Do you see how Biblical Hebrew differs from what you wrote? A subtle difference that someone whose native tongue is Modern Israeli Hebrew may not notice. But even this is not really good Biblical Hebrew.

I commented about it in my previous comment.
the form of שאל מ as "request" or "ask from/of" is Biblical.

It’s not as simple as you think. Other considerations are:
• is this an independent or dependent clause within the sentence?
• has the object of the verb been identified prior to this use, or is this the first time he’s mentioned?
• most importantly, is this the correct verb to use in this context?

I’ll address the last issue here. No, this is not the correct verb for this context. My first thought was that צוה is the correct verb, and it’s used in this manner in Jeremiah in his asking Baruch to do certain things. Baruch could have told Jeremiah off and not done what Jeremiah requested. My second choice is התחנן which is even used of a master asking a slave to do something.

You should say בקש as "request" if you want.

The combination of words בקש לעשות is not found in Tanakh.

Your sentence is a perfect example of why I didn’t expect Biblical Hebrew from you and you didn’t disappoint.

Your comment didn't disappoint me as well. Since I knew (from experience) that those who claim that they know Biblical Hebrew tend to find excuses in the most creative ways.
But in this case, your excuse was wrong.

This is a perfect example of how your understanding of Biblical Hebrew has been corrupted by your immersion in your mother tongue, namely modern Israeli Hebrew. You are applying modern Israeli Hebrew meanings and understandings to Biblical Hebrew, and those are not always correct.

And one more thing about it.
The fact that you went and search to see if there is the *exact same combination* just shows me that you can't understand it natural.

Or is that just a sign of being careful? Even in my mother tongue, when challenged, I’ll check dictionaries and other documents before answering, just to make sure of my answer.

But as I said, Since I have this experience from the past. Those who "excel" in Biblical Hebrew actually stick their head inside of a box. and can't realize that a language is a language and not mathematics.

LOL! That’s my criticism of Isaac Fried, and why I never read his posts.

The Tiberians are most remembered for their pronunciations. Therefore, that must be included.

Okay, this is interesting.
Tell me please, What is the pronunciation of the Tiberians?
How did they pronounce the Mobile Sheva?
How did they pronounce the Qamats?
How did they pronounce the Segol?
After all... "The Tiberians are most remembered for their pronunciations."

You can go and learn from a typical Introduction to Hebrew textbook to learn the answers to those questions, just as I was taught in class.

There was a city that as late as 2000 years ago in backward Galilee was still pronounced as “Yerosoluma”. That gives a clue that the original pronunciation of that city was probably “Yerewosoluma”.

This name had a lot of evolutions.
The city old pronunciation was Shalim.

You have no evidence for the pronunciation that you claim, other than from centuries later, when, according to your own claims, the language had changed.

You should also realize that there was was no Mobile Sheva in the first temple era.

Where’s your evidence?

you can check the DSS and see that they were using pausal forms in the middle of the verses. Probably they still didn't use the Mobile Sheva. (Probably).

The present versification wasn’t invented until much later, and often it doesn’t fit the flow of the ideas being presented.

Do you really believe that an ancient pronunciation without being written down was preserved by people whose native languages were different over a period of a millennium?

Yes. That is why I'm trying to tell.
The Bible was not some book that was known to people.
This book was read every day and every weak in public since the late Biblical time (when the religious era became stronger - At the time of Ezra).
The Masoretic people was already mentioned in the Mishna, as those who remember the text.
The Masoretic people weren't stupid, they knew the exact forms. what forms was lost and what forms were evolved. (and remember that I said that they didn't try to push to Moses's pronunciation, but to the evolved pronunciation in their time and regions (there were a few Masora systems).

Even with a pool of native speakers of a language, pronunciations change. They change more slowly if the pronunciations are written down and the people are literate, but they still change. Yet you expect me to believe that a language where the pronunciations were not written down was able to preserve its pronunciations for over a thousand years after the last native speaker died until some other non-native speakers invented a way to indicate those missing vowels? Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?

This is not what I'm trying to say.

But that’s what you actually are saying.

Hebrew people spoke as they spoke, according to their way and natural evolution of their tongue.

And for those who didn’t know how Hebrew originally was pronounced, would apply the pronunciations that they knew. For most Jews from the time preceding Ezra and Nehemiah through the medieval period, that pronunciation was Aramaic.

The Masoretic were a school of Hebrew. no just "the people". that was their Job.

They still were people of their time and place.

I asked you how many times you have read Tanakh cover to cover, all the way through. You haven’t answered that question. Am I correct to assume that your silence is an answer, namely that you haven’t done so even once?

My friend, I read the Bible a few times, Not from cover to cover by its order as a reading-project. but I read it a few times. each time I study another book.
The Torah, I read it more (and Psalms also).

That way you don’t know if you’ve read the whole thing.

But please tell me, how is that important?

Because by reading the whole book, you make sure to cover all that the book presents. By reading all of it, I was forced to face the fact that the conjugations code for neither tense nor linguistic aspect. By reading parts of it, it may appear that the conjugations code for tense, by reading other parts it may appear that they code for linguistic aspect, but by reading all of it, then one can see that they code for neither.

Another advantage of just sitting down and reading the text is that it allows the language just to flow over. That way one can get a feel for the language. That’s harder to do if one is a native speaker of a close cognate language, because he’ll be applying the patterns of his native language to the Tanakh. For this reason you are at a disadvantage compared to someone whose native tongue is not a Semitic language. The same disadvantage applies to those who study several Semitic languages (as in a doctoral program) and so find that the different languages mix themselves up in his mind.

As I said, let's talk about the evidence.
If it's right it's right. If it's wrong it's wrong.

We can also discuss what is evidence.

As I said, I don't want to make it personal.

Evidence isn’t personal.

Karl W. Randolph.