The letter vav

[Jemoh66]

Thanks Ste. That is interesting about כול.
I learned in Hebrew school that whenever you have the vav prefix on a word beginning with bet, pey or mem or vav, the vav prefix is pronounced as oo because otherwise it would be hard to pronounce.
But I was surprised to find that in Israeli street Hebrew, they always pronounce the vav prefix as "veh" no matter what letter comes next.
https://www.torahmusings.com/2012/12/on-the-prefix-vav/

It's unfortunate that it was presented to you that way, i.e. "pronounced as oo because otherwise it would be hard to pronounce." It was linguistically lazy for your teacher to say that. This is why I believe students should take basic linguistic courses before engaging in Biblical languages.
1. We're dealing with a waw, not a vav.
1a. A waw is a Bilabial. ב, פ, מ are all three Bilabials. Do not think of the פ or the ב as dental/labial like the [f] and [v]. They are respectively [ɸ] and [β].
1b. The waw [w] is a vowel-like consonant, like [y]. So it's makes sense that as a Bilabial and a vowel-like, when followed by a Bilabial it will glide into a full vowel.
1c. The vowel [u] is among other things a bilabial vowel, it requires the rounding of the upper and lower lips. Rather than the negative idea that it's difficult to say [wə] before [β], it would be better to describe the glide from vowel-like to full vowel as "economical."

Notice the same idea in a word like בירושלמ --> [biruʃɒlɔm] birooshahlom

So it's not a vowel. It is properly written as a consonant and belongs in a consonant only period. It's just that the native speaker of this pronunciation, while reading the unpointed text would turn the vowel-like consonants u and y into vowels in a particular phonological environment. In our present case the environment is "when preceding a bilabial consonant."

[Jemoh66]

Also,

In the case of modern Israeli Hebrew, the AND prefix has a full consonant: the /v/. So it doesn't lend itself to glide into a vowel. I am not surprised to find out that there is not change in any environment.

[SteveMiller]

Karl,
I was thinking that you wanted cases where את means "with" and not where it is the direct object marker. If the DSS spells one different than the other, that would help to determine whether the את should mean "with" or be the direct object marker.
I did a search for את (including prefixes and suffixes) in Isa, and Bibleworks returned 203 verses.
I chose just Isa because there is complete DSS for it.
Then I searched the resultant 203 verses above for the English word "with" in Darby's translation and got 55 verses.
In 33 of these 55 verses Darby translated an את as "with".
Here are the verses:
Isa. 14:20 - DSS has אתום. MT has ‎ אִתָּם
19:23
23:17
28:15,18
29:13 - DSS has אותי. MT has ‎ אֹתִ֔י
,14
34:14
36:8,16
37:9
40:10,14
41:4
43:2,5
45:9
49:4,25,26
50:8
53:9,12
57:15
59:12
,21 - DSS 1QIsaA has אתם. MT & DSS 1QIsaB have ‎ אוֹתם
60:9
62:11
63:3,11
65:23
66:10,16

When there is no comment above, both MT and DSS had no vav between the aleph and taf.
I also ran into a lot of את as direct object pointer in DSS, and none of those had a vav between aleph and taf.

So, DSS does not help differentiate the direct object marker from "with".

[SteveMiller]

Thanks Jonathan. That's a good explanation.

[S_Walch]

Okay, finally had time to get this done. So here we go (just regarding ובכל):

Places where the DSS is not extant at all
Ge 7:21; 8:17; 9:2, 10; 41:54; Ex 35:31; Le 18:23; 20:25; 25:24; Nu 21:25; Dt 4:29; 6:22; 16:15; 26:16; 30:2; Jos 9:1; 12:5; 22:5; 23:14; 24:17; Jdg 7:22; 11:26; 14:3;1 Sa 14:15; 17:12; 1 Ki 2:4; 8:48; 9:19; 2 Ki 20:13; 23:3, 25; 1 Ch 5:16; 2 Ch 6:38; 8:6; 11:12; 15:12, 15; 21:14; 28:25; 31:21; 34:31; Ne 9:10; 10:1; 13:6; Esther 2:11; 4:3; 8:17; Pr 4:7; Job 31:12; Eze 7:18; 23:7; 27:22, 27; 31:12; 34:13; Da 11:43; Je 32:41; 33:12; 51:52; 10:7 15:13; Mal 1:11;

Places where the DSS has a verse extant, but not all of it that has what we want in question
Ge 1:26: Some of verse extant in 4QGenb, 4QGend, & 4QGenk, but not of ובכל.
Ge 1:28: Some of verse extant in 4QGenb, 4QGenk, & pap4QGen, but not of ובכל.
Ex 1:14: Some of verse extant in 2QExoda & 4QGen-Exoda, but not of ובכל
Ex 7:29: Some of verse extant in 4QExodj & 4QPaleoExodm, but not of ובכל.
Ex 8:20: Some of verse extant in 4QGen-Exoda, 4QpaleoGen-Exodl & 4QpaleoExodm, but not of ובכל.
Ex 12:12: Some of verse extant in 4QpaleoGen-Exodl & 4QExodc, but not of ובכל.
Ex 31:3: Some of verse extant in 4QpaleoExodm, but not of ובכל.
Dt 6:5: Some of verse extant in 4QDeutp, but not of ובכל.
Dt 11:13: Some of this verse extant in 4QDeutc, 4QDeutj & 4QDeutk1, but not of ובכל.
Dt 13:4: Some of verse extant in 1QDeuta, but not of ובכל.
Dt 14:26: Some of verse extant in 1QDeuta & 4QpaleoDeutr, but not of ובכל.
Dt 15:10: Some of verse extant in 4QpaleoDeutr, but not of ובכל.
Dt 28:8: Some of verse extant in 4QDeutc, but not of ובכל.
Dt 30:6: Some of verse extant in 4QDeutb, but not of ובכל.
Dt 30:10: Some of verse extant in 4QDeutb, but not of ובכל.
Ps 135:9: Some of verse extant in 4QPsn, but not of ובכל.
Am 5:16: Some of verse extant in 4QXIIg, but not of ובכל.
Am 5:17: Some of verse extant in 4QXIIg, but not of ובכל.
Da 2:38: Some of this verse extant in 4QDana, but not of ובכל.
Eze 5:11: Some of this verse extant in 11QEz, but not of ובכל.
Eze 37:23: Some of this verse extant in MasEzek, but not of ובכל.


This leaves us with a grand total of 11 (yes, 11) places in the DSS where we can see how it was written across the manuscripts.

Ex 9:11: 4QExodc = ובכל

Ex 14:4: Some of verse extant in 4QExodc, but not of ובכל.
4QpaleoExodm = וב[כל] (likely)

Ex 14:17: 4QpaleoGen-Exodi = ובכל

Ex 23:13: 4QpaleoGen-Exodi = [ובכ]ל (likely)

Ex 34:10: 2QExodb = וב[כול] (likely)

Dt 10:12: Some of verse extant in 2QDeutc & 4QpaleoDeutr, but not of ובכל.
4QDeutl = ובכל

1 Sa 14:47: 4QSama =ובכול

Is 7:19: 1QIsaa =ובכול
Some of verse extant in 4QIsae, but not of ובכל.

Is 39:2: 1QIsaa = ובכול
Some of this verse extant in 1QIsab & 4QIsab, but not of ובכל.

Is 49:9 :1QIsaa = ובכול
Some of this verse extant in 1QIsab & 4QIsad, but not of ובכל.

Je 17:19: 4QJera = ובכל

Our statistics are therefore: None-extant: 90; Extant: 11

Definite ובכל: 4
Definite ובכול: 4
Likely ובכל: 2
Likely ובכול: 1

For the places where we have part of the verse, but not all of it, it could be given a possible spelling for ובכל based on the usage of plene/defective spellings in the manuscript. This would require some more time than I feel like we need to give.

The usage is pretty much split, however the defective spelling as ובכל is from four different manuscripts (and likely a fifth); the plene has most in one manuscript (three in 1QIsaa), with only one more with a definite, one with a likely.


(As a note, Steve: you have 1QIsab as having ובכל in Isa 39:2. The manuscript isn't actually extant in that part of the verse; nevertheless, 1QIsab more than likely read ובכל, as the manuscript doesn't use as many plene spellings as 1QIsaa.)

[SteveMiller]

Thanks very much, Ste.
It looks like the plene spellings are mainly by manuscript.
You are right about Isa 39:2 in 1QIsaB. I used Logos to view the DSS and it sometimes fills out the missing part of the verse in []'s, and I missed that the last part of that verse was preceded by a "[" with no closing "]".

[Isaac Fried]

Indeed, for clarity, spoken ("street") Hebrew, namely the Hebrew of the mouth and the ear, pronounces an initial non-radical with an E (a "segol") in place of a schwa for a radical. For instance,
וְרָדִים VRADIYM, 'roses', וְרִידִים VRIDIYM, 'veins', וְלָדוֹת VLADOT, 'new born'.
But
וְרִיב V(E)RIYB, 'and the cause', וְרוּחִי V(E)RUXIY, 'and my spirit', בְּרוּחָה B(E)RUXAH, 'in her spirit' (but: בְּרוּכָה BRUXAH, 'blessed').

Yet, before a vowel our proverbial Hebrew speaking "man of the street" (say Prof. IF) will revert to an E for a schwa. For instance: צְעָקָה TZ(E)AQAH, 'cry, scream, shout', יְהוּדִי Y(E)HUDIY, 'Jew'.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[SteveMiller]

Isaac, how would you say ‎ וּבְכָל "and in all"?

[kwrandolph]

Karl,
I was thinking that you wanted cases where את means "with" and not where it is the direct object marker. If the DSS spells one different than the other, that would help to determine whether the את should mean "with" or be the direct object marker.

No, my question is, how many times is את meaning “with” spelled as אות? So far, I’ve located 39 times in the MT, 25 of which are found in just two books—Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Does not this spelling indicate that the original pronunciation of “with” was ōt or ōte, and not et as in modern pronunciation?

I did a search for את (including prefixes and suffixes) in Isa, and Bibleworks returned 203 verses.
I chose just Isa because there is complete DSS for it.
Then I searched the resultant 203 verses above for the English word "with" in Darby's translation and got 55 verses.
In 33 of these 55 verses Darby translated an את as "with".
Here are the verses:
Isa. 14:20 - DSS has אתום. MT has ‎ אִתָּם
19:23
23:17
28:15,18
29:13 - DSS has אותי. MT has ‎ אֹתִ֔י
,14
34:14
36:8,16
37:9
40:10,14
41:4
43:2,5
45:9
49:4,25,26
50:8
53:9,12
57:15
59:12
,21 - DSS 1QIsaA has אתם. MT & DSS 1QIsaB have ‎ אוֹתם
60:9
62:11
63:3,11
65:23
66:10,16

When there is no comment above, both MT and DSS had no vav between the aleph and taf.
I also ran into a lot of את as direct object pointer in DSS, and none of those had a vav between aleph and taf.

In Isaiah I had located one such spelling in 59:12, you mention two occurrences. How many more in the rest of the surviving DSS? What does that spelling indicate about the original pronunciation of “with”?

Karl W. Randolph.

[S_Walch]

Thanks very much, Ste.
It looks like the plene spellings are mainly by manuscript.

Certainly.

If we look at the dates for the manuscripts with/probably with ובכול, 2QExodb is around 30-68 CE; 4QSama is around 100-50 BCE; and 1QIsaa is around 250-100 BCE. So even though it does seem the plene spellings are 'by manuscript', there's quite a gap of time between the assigned dates, indicating the plene spelling was used even up to the pre-Jewish revolt of 68 CE.

On the other side for the manuscripts with/probably with ובכל, 4QExodc is around 50-25 BCE; 4QpaleoExodm is around 200-175 BCE; 4QpaleoGen-Exodl is around 100-25 BCE; 4QDeutl is around 50 BCE; and 4QJera is around 250-150 BCE.

It's very interesting that we have no post 1st century BCE with the defective of ובכל, but I would hazard a guess that the defective became the de facto way to spell the word.

Nonetheless, it does seem that the plene and defective forms could exist side-by-side anytime between the 3rd century BCE and the 1st century CE.

You are right about Isa 39:2 in 1QIsaB. I used Logos to view the DSS and it sometimes fills out the missing part of the verse in []'s, and I missed that the last part of that verse was preceded by a "[" with no closing "]".

Exactly why I wouldn't use the Logos DSS database; it doesn't actually show a decent transcription of the DSS manuscripts, especially when it comes to those manuscripts using Paleo-Hebrew YHWH and elohim. Nor the proper gaps between verses etc. I'm not even quite sure calling it a 'transcription' is quite right.

I prefer to consult the actual images in either the DJD series or over at the Leon-Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive