An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

Much of the Masoretic system is focused on textual organization, and a few of the
relevant features may be mentioned. 1 Modern grammarians of Biblical Hebrew have,
until recently, tended to slight the study of the Masorah, viewing that mass of
observations and notes as the result of study undertaken long after the biblical text
was recorded. It has become increasingly clear that the Masoretes were first of all
recorders and preservers of tradition and only then scholars interested in
reconstructing the shape of that tradition (cf. 1.6.3g–m). 2
[Page 633] c The Masoretes supplied the preserved text with four features which assist
the exegete in analyzing both the discourse’s units of thought and the relationships
among clauses and words. To stay within the scope of this grammar we limit
ourselves to a simple presentation. (1) Paragraphs (based on content) called pisqot or
parashiyyot, are marked by spaces in the text. The pisqot seem to have been marked
in early (Jewish) manuscripts of the Greek translation, showing that they were a
feature of the text before the turn of the era. 3 (2) The division into verses was
formalized later than that into pisqot. Nevertheless, it seems that the Bible was
divided into verses in talmudic times, since there are halakot (legal findings) which
depend on this feature. 4 (3) Column and line divisions are also useful. “In a
synagogue scroll, care is taken to begin every column with some word beginning with
waw, with the exception of six columns which must begin with particular words,”
including notably תישׁארבּ (Gen 1:1). 5 The “songs” in the Torah are written in a
distinctive format, described in the Talmud. The manner in which the other biblical
poems and lists are written is less rigidly fixed. 6 (4) The accents constitute the most
complex of these features. Whereas the first three contribute to understanding a
variety of linguistic facts, the accentuation system is most important for understanding
the relationship of words and clauses within a given verse. Such understanding,
however, is not strictly the first goal of the accents. Rather, as Israel Yeivin notes,
they supplement the text.
Their primary function…is to represent the musical motifs to which the Biblical text was
chanted in the public reading. This chant enhanced the beauty and solemnity of the reading,
but because the purpose of the reading was to present the text clearly and intelligibly to the
hearers, the chant is dependent on the text, and emphasizes the logical relationships of the
1 We rely here on Israel Yeivin, Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah, ed. and trans.
E. J. Revell (Masoretic Studies 5; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1980).
2 Two groups of materials are relevant: Qumranic texts that witness to the antiquity of
certain aspects of the Masorah, and modern grammatical studies that show that the
complexities of Masoretic study could not be the result of later reconstruction; for this
latter group, see the various studies of phonology cited in the Bibliography (§1d-e),
especially those of J. L. Malone and E. J. Revell.
3 Yeivin, Tiberian Masorah, 42.
4 Yeivin, Tiberian Masorah, 42.
5 Yeivin, Tiberian Masorah, 43.
6 Yeivin, Tiberian Masorah, 43.