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Dans l'hebreu de Samuel, Roi, et d'autres ecrits preexiliques, les numeraux precedent le nom, par contre dans les Chroniques 1 et 2 et d'autres livres en biblique tardif, les numeraux sont places apres le nom. L'A. propose une explication de ce changement en hebreu biblique

THE feminine numeral 'two' has been a perennial problem of Biblical Hebrew orthography and phonology. It is the only word in Hebrew with a dagesh in the second consonant following an initial letter marked with a shewa. It thus must violate at least one of the following principles, which are generally assumed to govern the phonetic interpetation of Hebrew orthography: 1. The rule of spirantization applies invariably: non-geminate b g d k p t are always spirantized if preceded by a vowel, even a reduced vowel. 2. A reduced vowel (written with shewa or hatef) can occur only in an open syllable, never in a closed syllable, even one closed by a long consonant. 3. There are no syllable-initial consonant clusters; hence a shewa symbol under the first letter of a word must indicate a reduced vowel, not zero. The word for 'two' begins with '-shewa-t-dagesh, and both the shewa and dagesh are multivalued symbols: a shewa symbol can indicate a reduced vowel or no vowel at all, and a dagesh can indicate a geminate (long) consonant or simply the stop character of one of the spirantizable letters. Two choices times two variables gives four logical possibilities, and most of these possibilities have been proposed by scholars in the past. According to one's choice of which principle to violate, one will consider this word to have been phonetically 'athyim (violates principle 1),' atthuyim (violates principle 2 or 3),2 dthyim (violates principle 3);3 the only logical combination which does not seem to have its advocates is ttahyim (violates principle 3). H. Bauer and P. Leander raise the possibility that the spelling is designed to indicate a choice between two readings, SdOayim and sitthyim.4 Occasionally it has been suggested that the unusual spelling indicates a more unusual pronunciation; for instance, "It may well be... a phonetic

As elsewhere outside, Mari plene writing of long vowels is optional in final closed syllables and in penultimate open syllables. Uncontracted forms as (la) also occur in Mari Akkadian, though less frequently.' The shift differs substantially from the dialectal Old Babylonian and later Babylonian treatment a as in annd, annati, etc., and it puzzled Assyriologists when it appeared for the first time in an Old Babylonian letter years before the discovery of the Mari archives. In this letter two prisoners of war are writing to the wife of a high military official and ask to be ransomed by a traveling merchant.2 The letter refers to the area

ONE of the most interesting "Canaanitic" inscriptions hitherto known was brought to our knowledge by Comte du Mesnil du Buisson in 1939 in Melanges Syriens offerts d M. Ren6 Dussaud, I, 421-34. Besides giving photographs and cuts, Du Mesnil attempted to read and explain the text and its contents. The inscription is written on both sides of a gypsum tablet measuring 8.5 X 7 cm. This tablet, together with another smaller one, was found at Arslan-Tash in upper Syria, at the site of the small Assyrian town of Tjadattu ("New-Town" in Aramaic), mentioned in Assyrian documents from the seventh century B.C. as lying on the main road from Harran (Abraham's dwelling-place) to Carchemish. A few months later W. F. Albright dealt with this inscription,1 adding his observations on its background, writing, and date, and correcting some of Du Mesnil's readings, with a new translation of the whole text.2

UNTIL the 19th century the only system of vocalization known for the Bible was that developed by the Tiberian masoretes; the only school texts known were those of Ben Asher or what was believed to be the canonical Ben Asher. The discovery of other systems of vocalization and non-canonical consonantal texts shattered the familiar picture of uniformity. But all Hebrew grammars and dictionaries had already been based on the Tiberian so-called Ben Asher text, really mostly the text made up by Ben IHayyim in the sixteenth century. Although differences between Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali were handed down, already in medieval manuscripts those lists were confused and subsequently neglected. When the ancient versions began to be compared on a scientific scale, the impression arose that there is hardly a page in the Hebrew Bible which is free from corruptions. A look at the apparatus of the Biblia Hebraica of KittelKahle suffices to substantiate this picture. In order to obtain access to older stages of that text some progress is being made in the study of pre-Tiberian Hebrew grammar. But the study of pre-Tiberian manuscript traditions, quite apart from the Dead Sea scrolls, is still in its infancy. A careful examination of medieval Hebrew manuscripts shows that the traditions of the sacred text in antiquity were partly different. One of those principles no longer recognized by the masoretes will here be set out in detail. The principle constitutes what we should like to call "the textual ambivalence of Hebrew consonants," i.e., the fact that the same consonants may be connected both with the word preceding and that following it. That ambivalence will be shown to exist: (I) In extra-masoretic texts, (II) in Aramaic and Samaritan tradition, (III) in the Peshita, (IV) in the tradition of Biblical Greek, (V) in Biblical Hebrew. Here the application of that principle will be shown (a) in the use of matres lectionis, (b) of other consonants.

PRIOR to the recovery of ancient Ugarit, and the decipherment of its native literature, the appearance in biblical Hebrew poetry of different "tense" forms of the same verb set in parallel construction, whether yqtl//qtl or qtl//yqtl, was considered by some scholars to be "tautological and improbable for a poetic writer."1 Accordingly, the text of any passage so structured was eminently suspect. Now, thanks to its occurrence in Ugaritic poetry, parallelization of selfsame verbs in varying tenses has been conceded the position of a sanctioned, if not quite common, feature of Canaanite literary style. Umberto (Moshe David) Cassuto seems to have been the first to have taken note of this device in Ugaritic, and, on the strength of its presence there, to have asserted the legitimacy of its employment in Hebrew verse.2 Among other Ugaritic passages he referred to UT 51 VI 38-40