Accents Numbers 24:23-24

[Chris Watts]

וַיִּשָּׂ֥א מְשָׁל֖וֹ וַיֹּאמַ֑ר א֕וֹי מִ֥י יִחְיֶ֖ה מִשֻּׂמ֥וֹ אֵֽל׃ וְצִים֙ מִיַּ֣ד כִּתִּ֔ים וְעִנּ֥וּ אַשּׁ֖וּר וְעִנּוּ־עֵ֑בֶר וְגַם־ה֖וּא עֲדֵ֥י אֹבֵֽד׃

Could someone tell me the name of this accent please, on the word : וְצִים֙

I have a comprehensive list of the disjunctive and conjunctive accents with all their descriptions, yet this one accent is missing from the Non-Poetic list.

The reason I am asking this is because there appears to be disagreement about whether Verse 24 belongs to verse 23 or not. It seems more than obvious that verse 24 begins a whole new Judgement from Balaam. The vav I think makes that clear, the context could g either way in our English ears, but I suspect that accent is a minor disjunctive separating it from the previous Word אֵֽל. But still, it is not on any lists that I have.

Chris watts

[bdenckla]

This is pashta. I would be surprised to find it missing from any list of accents, much less missing from multiple lists (which is the situation you describe). So that's weird. At a surface level, you can always roughly look up an accent in Unicode text by examining the underlying Unicode using a tool like Uniview, which for this word yields the following:

 ‎05D5 HEBREW LETTER VAV
 ‎05B0 HEBREW POINT SHEVA
 ‎05E6 HEBREW LETTER TSADI
 ‎05B4 HEBREW POINT HIRIQ
 ‎05D9 HEBREW LETTER YOD
 ‎05DD HEBREW LETTER FINAL MEM
 ‎0599 HEBREW ACCENT PASHTA

That having been said, the caveat is that some texts are encoded in funny ways to achieve a certain visual "look" rather than to correctly communicate the underlying semantics. Probably the most common example of this is using Unicode QADMA as the stress helper for pashta. This is sometimes done to assure central positioning of that mark in all fonts, since only some fonts place Unicode PASHTA centrally when it is non-final (this may be considered a feature or a bug, depending on taste, BTW).

[Chris Watts]

Hallo ben,

Thank you for that. It is not listed in two of the printed PDF documents I have, I did find it in van der merwe's reference grammar, just did not think to look there because he does not really describe the accents in any detail at all, and he does not list all of them either.

Chris watts

[cvkimball]

Users of the UXLC at <https://tanach.us> can see the names of the characters in displayed word(s) by:

1. Highlight the word(s).

2. Place the cursor inside and at the end of the highlighted area.

3 . Hold down the SHIFT key and click without moving the cursor.

Some practice will make this easier. It's also handy if you need to enter the HTML codes for the characters into a document.

Chris Kimball
West Redding, CT
USA

[Chris Watts]

Chris - many many thanks. I had no idea one could do this. It's going to be a great help.

1. But could someone explain why there is a disjunctive accent on this word beginning verse 24?

2. I translate this as : Who will live from the moment God appoints this, pointing to the ships from Kittim - V24 answering to V23. Which is why I query the Pashta

3. Also One can not ignore that preposition as practically all English translations have done, it can not be justified to translate this מִשֻּׂמ֥וֹ as "When God does/appoints this". 'When' is not a preposition but an adverb.

Chris watts

[cvkimball]

The following were helpful to me, as a NON-expert:

1. Dr. Joshua R. Jacobson, Chanting the Hebrew Bible: The Art of Cantillation. This book has convincing examples showing that understanding accents is essential in finding the (Masoretic) meaning of the verse. Cantillation isn't just about singing!

2. The OSHB Hebrew verse diagramming site; <https://hb.openscriptures.org/structure ... index.html>. This site allows you to see the verse divided according to the accents. (Num 24:24 shown.) The first word is at the third level.

3. I'd certainly weigh the accents more than current understandings of grammar in determining "meaning".

4. Modern ecumenical study bibles such as the RSV, NRSV, are based on the Masoretic text and claim to pay attention to the accents. See Jacobson's commentary on Isaiah 40:3, "A voice crying..." and examine a bible's translation as to where the term "wilderness" applies to see whether the accents have been applied correctly.

Chris Kimball
West Redding, CT
USA

[Chris Watts]

The following were helpful to me, as a NON-expert:

1. Dr. Joshua R. Jacobson, Chanting the Hebrew Bible: The Art of Cantillation. This book has convincing examples showing that understanding accents is essential in finding the (Masoretic) meaning of the verse. Cantillation isn't just about singing!

2. The OSHB Hebrew verse diagramming site; <https://hb.openscriptures.org/structure ... index.html>. This site allows you to see the verse divided according to the accents. (Num 24:24 shown.) The first word is at the third level.

3. I'd certainly weigh the accents more than current understandings of grammar in determining "meaning".

4. Modern ecumenical study bibles such as the RSV, NRSV, are based on the Masoretic text and claim to pay attention to the accents. See Jacobson's commentary on Isaiah 40:3, "A voice crying..." and examine a bible's translation as to where the term "wilderness" applies to see whether the accents have been applied correctly.

Chris Kimball
West Redding, CT
USA

Hallo Chris,

Jacobson- I will look him up- thank you. And point three, yes, I am of the same opinion.

A great help but are there any instructions on how to use the site, I only need to understand the abbreviations, tried to align them with grammatical terminology but still can not make sense of the abbreviations underneath the hebrew words.

Also, regarding Num 24:24, can not understand what you meant here by ""The first word is on the third level""? I know that the Little Zaqef is actually more forceful than the Greater Zaqef, but it does not help to understand what you mean by 'Third Level"?

https://hb.openscriptures.org/structure ... &c=24&v=24

Kindest regards
Chris watts

[cvkimball]

Only that a pashta is a third level disjunctive here. For a table of accent types, see the table in <https://tanach.us/Pages/Coding.xml>. D-3 is a 3rd level disjunctive.

I haven't looked much further at the OSHB site, so I can't be of help with their abbreviations; and, I don't know, either, what the site does if there's a cantillation error in the text.

Best wishes,

Chris Kimball
West Redding, CT
USA

[Chris Watts]

Many Thanks.

Chris watts