info on vertical lines

[Kristin]

I feel bad even asking this question since it is so stupid, but I would appreciate any help anyone can provide.

 

These little vertical dashes in the Hebrew text, geez, I can't remember what these things are called for the life of me, but these little whatevertheyares I have always understood to be a minor break in the text, perhaps a semi-colon is the best thing I can say, but frankly, half the time they don't make sense and I just ignore them. Since what I am trying to say is so vague I will post a screenshot.

 

Does anyone know how original these things are? I can't seem to click on them or get any other info.

 

Thanks,

Kristin

 

[pbp]

1 hour ago, Kristin said:

I feel bad even asking this question since it is so stupid, but I would appreciate any help anyone can provide.

 

These little vertical dashes in the Hebrew text, geez, I can't remember what these things are called for the life of me, but these little whatevertheyares I have always understood to be a minor break in the text, perhaps a semi-colon is the best thing I can say, but frankly, half the time they don't make sense and I just ignore them. Since what I am trying to say is so vague I will post a screenshot.

 

Does anyone know how original these things are? I can't seem to click on them or get any other info.

 

Thanks,

Kristin

 

Some are cantillation marks (Biblical Accents), as Šalšèleth, Lᵉgarmēh, but I think you probably refer to the Paseq.

From the Gesenius Grammar: 

«This stroke (Šalšèleth) is commonly confused with Paseq, which has the same form. But Pâsēq (=restraining, dividing, also incorrectly called Pᵉsı̂q) is neither an independent accent, nor a constituent part of other accents, but is used as a mark for various purposes; see the Masoretic lists at the end of Baer’s editions, and Wickes, Accents of the Twenty-one Books, p. 120 ff., where Pâsēq is divided into distinctivum, emphaticum, homonymicum, and euphonicum.

[...]

The purpose of Paseq is clearly recognizable in the five old rules: as a divider between identical letters at the end and beginning of two words; between identical or very similar words; between words which are absolutely contradictory (as God and evil-doer); between words which are liable to be wrongly connected; and lastly, between heterogeneous terms, as ‘Eleazar the High Priest, and Joshua’. But the assumption of a far-reaching critical importance in Paseq is at least doubtful».

[Kristin]

Thank you very much, @pbp.

[Benjamin Denckla]

I agree with a lot of what @pbp (& Gesenius) says above, but not all of it.

 

In the particular example you give, in Jeremiah 40:14 , the vertical line is what, at least in my community and references, is usually called legarmeih. But there is a lot of confusing variation in terminology across different communities and references.

 

In your example, the legarmeih is doing what it always does, and only does in the 21 books: it is modifying the munax to be a special type of munax called munax legarmeih. (I romanize (transliterate) the letter ח using "x"; a more common (but to me more problematic) romanization is "ch".)

 

In the particular example you give, munax legarmeih is functioning in its most common role, as the third in the following sequence of 3 accents (the meteg is not an accent for this purpose):

1. munax legarmeih
2. munax
3. revia` (backtick for ayin)

All or most of what @pbp quotes from Gesenius seems correct to me, but it is about paseq, and your particular example concerns legarmeih. So though all or most of it may be correct, it is not relevant to your example.

 

As to why shalshelet enters into the discussion, I'm not sure. Shalshelet is combined with legarmeih in the cantillation system of the 3 books comprising the sifrei emet (Job, Proverbs, & Psalms). But let's consider the sifrei emet to be beyond the scope of this discussion, and stick to the 21 books for now at least.

[Kristin]

Hi @Benjamin Denckla,

Thank you for letting me know. If I am understanding correctly, the issue with Jer 40:14 is only addressing the correct pronunciation, but has no bearing on translation, and translating it, I can just ignore it. Is this correct?

[Benjamin Denckla]

Cantillation marks can, for some purposes, usefully be thought of as "punctuation on steroids." So, just as in English, sometimes a comma can change the meaning of sentence, in the Hebrew Bible, sometimes cantillation can be important for translation. But usually it is only important for (musical) chanting. The location of the accents (though not what they are) can be helpful in just "speaking" the text non-musically, too, because most of the accents indicate the stressed syllable. (This is akin to the role of the one and only accent in a language like Spanish, although there it is only used to indicate irregular stress, not used on every word!) 

[Benjamin Denckla]

BTW AFAIK the best English language reference on the accents of the 21 books is Chanting the Hebrew Bible, Second Edition: The Art of Cantillation | The Jewish Publication Society (jps.org). I find a lot of people are using very old sources like Gesenius and Wickes, and while the Hebrew Bible hasn't changed much in thousands of years, scholarship has made a lot of progress even in the last 50 years. Also... how to put this delicately... I speculate that some older Christian scholarship was not always as informed by Jewish scholarship as it could have been, had the world been a different place ...

[Benjamin Denckla]

On 11/16/2021 at 6:19 PM, Benjamin Denckla said:

As to why shalshelet enters into the discussion, I'm not sure. Shalshelet is combined with legarmeih in the cantillation system of the 3 books comprising the sifrei emet (Job, Proverbs, & Psalms). But let's consider the sifrei emet to be beyond the scope of this discussion, and stick to the 21 books for now at least.

 

I think I now see why shalshelet may have entered into the discussion of paseq in Gesenius. What I said about sifrei emet isn't quite true. While shalshelet is only meaningfully combined with legarmeih in the cantillation of the sifrei emet, a vertical line that we might as well call legarmeih does always appear with shalshelet in the 21 books. I.e. in the 21 books, all 7 times shalshelet appears, the word in question is followed by a vertical bar that we might as well call legarmeih. But only in sifrei emet does shalshelet appear sometimes with legarmeih and sometimes without legarmeih. I.e. only in sifrei emet does legarmeih relate to shalshelet the way legarmeih relates to munax: namely, as a modifier. When legarmeih always appears with shalshelet, i.e. in the 21 books, legarmeih isn't modifying shalshelet, it is just sort of "reinforcing" shalshelet. 

 

In other words, in my way of thinking, legarmeih is only meaningfully combined with a mark (shalshelet or munax) if legarmeih sometimes appears with that mark, and sometimes doesn't.

 

But, regardless of whether, in the 21 books, legarmeih on a word with shalshelet  is "meaningful," legarmeih on a word with shalshelet still might be confused with paseq, so it makes perfect sense to me now that shalshelet would enter into the discussion of paseq in Gesenius.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Benjamin Denckla
simplified "unconditionally" to "always"