Hebrew Studies 58 (2017): 8197

LEXICAL ISOGLOSSES OF ARCHAIC HEBREW:

( DEUT 32:31) AND ( JUDG 5:15) AS CASE STUDIES*

Tania Notarius
Hebrew University of Jerusalem and University of the Free State

Abstract: Archaic Biblical Hebrew is a phase of the linguistic develop-

ment preceding by several centuries the Classical stage of the Judean
Kingdom. Archaic poetic texts belong historically to the Early Iron age
the stage of their early literarizationthey were transmitted for several
centuries, either orally or in a sporadic written fixation, before being in-
corporated into longer prosaic compositions at a later stage, which was
also a stage of their early perception. Wider socio-linguistic and lexi-
cological discussion illustrates this model.

This paper starts with a short discussion on what I consider as phe-

nomena of the most archaic stage of the linguistic development of Hebrew
as attested in the corpus of the Hebrew Bible (sec. 1). In order to sub-
stantiate my view, I will concentrate on some cross-cultural and socio-
linguistic aspects of the literarization process of the ancient poems (sec.
2). The main focus of the paper will be on lexicon, namely on paths for
adopting unusual and archaic vocabulary into an updated literary ver-
sion (sec. 3). Two case studies will be studied: from the perspective of
cognate data in Semitic languages the lexeme ( Deut 32:31) is to be
related to the root p-l-l with the meaning be cracked, parched, under-
stood as a disgraceful description of ones enemies (sec. 3.1). As for
(Judg 5:15)in view of the distribution of the lexemes for being in
different cognate dialects (sec. 3.2), I suggest that this form is to be corre-
lated with the meaning be of the root k-w-n and represents a local
vernacular isogloss.

1. INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ARCHAIC BIBLICAL HEBREW?

The corpus of the Hebrew Bible represents diverse language types

stylistically, chronologically, and dialectologically. Archaic Biblical

* Many aspects of the paper were discussed with Clinton Bailey, Aaron Koller, Edward
Greenstein,and Aaron Hornkohl; I thank them for the very meaningful comments. All possible mistakes
are mine. A preliminary draft of the paper was presented at the on-line Colloquium of the Department
of Hebrew Language of the University of the Free State (Bloemfontein, South Africa) and at the 17th
World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, Israel), and the author greatly benefited from the
questions and comments of the participants.
Tania Notarius

Hebrew is a stage of the linguistic development that chronologically pre-

cedes the Biblical Hebrew of the formative period (Classical / Standard or
Early Biblical Hebrew); in this sense it can be called proto-Hebrew.1 The
linguistic characteristics of this stage are identifiable in the corpus of old
poems on the basis of several factors: their contrast to corresponding Clas-
sical Biblical Hebrew tokens and their match to the cognate phenomena
in ancient Northwest Semitic languages.2 Some archaic features are spo-
radically preserved in texts representative of Classical Biblical Hebrew

1. For the traditional studies of archaic Hebrew, see W. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of
Canaan: A Historical Analysis of the Two Contrasting Faiths (Garden City: Doubleday, 1968); F. M.
Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula: Scholars, 1975); D. A.
Robertson, Linguistic Evidence in Dating Early Hebrew Poetry (SBLDS 3; Missoula: Scholars, 1972);
C. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena in the Light of Akkadian and Ugaritic (Missoula: Scholars, 1978);
S. Morag, :( Layers of antiquity: Some linguistic observations
on the oracles of Balaam) Tarbiz 50 (1981): 124; A. F. Rainey, The Ancient Hebrew Prefix
Conjugation in the Light of the Amarna Canaanite, HS 27 (1986): 519. The traditional approach was
criticized by I. Young, The Archaic Poetry of the Pentaeuch in the MT, Samaritan Pentateuch, and
4QExodc, Abr Nahrain 35 (1998):7483; Y. Bloch, ? -
[( Then he sangwhen? A reexamination of the theory of early biblical poetry] MA
thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2005); R. Vern, Dating Archaic Biblical Hebrew Poetry:
A Critique of the Linguistic Arguments (Piscataway: Gorgias, 2011). For more updated research, see T.
Notarius, The Verb in Archaic Biblical Poetry: A Discursive, Typological, and Historical Investigation
of the Tense System (Leiden: Brill, 2013); N. Pat-El and A. Wilson-Wright, Features of Archaic
Biblical Hebrew and the Linguistic Dating Debate, HS 54 (2013): 387410; P. Bekins, Object Marking
in Biblical Hebrew Poetry (forthcoming). See the research reviews in A. Mandell, Biblical Hebrew,
Archaic, in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (ed. G. Khan; Leiden: Brill, 2013); A.
Gianto, Archaic Biblical Hebrew, in A Handbook of Biblical Hebrew (ed. W. R. Garr and S. E.
Fassberg; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2016), pp. 1929.
2. The principles of contrast and external evidence are rooted in the method of A. Hurvitz,
Linguistic Criteria for Dating Problematic Biblical Texts, Hebrew Abstracts 14 (1973): 7479 or
A. Hurvitz, A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic Innovations in the Writings of the
Second Temple Period (Leiden: Brill, 2014). The study of the historical and literary context of the
poems is also important (cf. the principle of distribution by Hurvitz) but will be left out of the present
essay; compare, for example, B. Halpern, The Resourceful Israelite Historian: The Song of Deborah
and Israelite Historiography, HTR 76 (1983): 379401; N. Naaman, Literary and Topographical
Notes on the Battle of Kishon (Judges ivv), VT 40 (1990): 424425; J. C. de Moor, The Twelve
Tribes in the Song of Deborah, VT 43 (1993): 483493; T. L. Fenton, Hebrew Poetic Structure as a
Basis for Dating, in In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar
(ed. J. Day; London: T & T Clark, 2004), pp. 386409; S. T. Hollis, Two Hymns as Praise Poems,
Royal Ideology, and History in Ancient Israel and Ancient Egypt: A Comparative Reflection, in Egypt,
Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology (ed. S. Bar, D. Kahn, and J. Shirley; Leiden: Brill,
2011), pp. 115135; C. Cohen, Pharaohs Third-Man Charioteers (Exod. 14.7; 15.4) and the
Unnoticed Literary Allusion to the Battle of Qadesh in the Song of the Sea, in Visions of Life in Biblical
Times: Essays in Honor of Meir Lubetski. (ed. C. Gottlieb, C. Cohen, and M. Gruber; Sheffield:
Sheffield Phoenix, 2015), pp. 1746; M. S. Smith, Poetic Heroes: Literary Commemorations of
Warriors and Warrior Culture in the Early Biblical World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), to mention
just a few.

82
 Lexical Isoglosses

(particularly in poetry), but the old poems reveal the archaic language type
in a more consistent and systematic way.3
Due to the meager character of data, our knowledge of proto-Hebrew
is not complete and partly reconstructed; the reconstruction is carried out
in terms of the historical-comparative analysis, enriched by the methods
of linguistic typology.4 The assertion that Archaic Biblical Hebrew is an
additional stage of transition from ancient Northwest Semitic epigraphic
data to the Hebrew of the Iron Age (both epigraphic and biblical) allows
for the illumination of linguistic changes in a more refined and meticulous
way.5
Heterogeneity is an intrinsic attribute of any linguistic data; Classical
Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew are no exception.6 Linguistic
diversity is evidenced in the ancient Northwest Semitic epigraphic mate-
rial of the Late Bronze Age; it is typical of early Canaanite and Aramaic
alphabetic epigraphic data.7 The archaic language type of Hebrew demon-

3. Compare Y. Bloch, The Prefixed Perfective and the Dating of Early Hebrew PoetryA
Re-Evaluation, VT 59 (2009): 3470; Y. Bloch, The Prefixed Perfective in the Construction
and Its Later Replacement by the Long Prefixed Verbal Form: A Syntactic and Text-Critical Analysis,
JNSL 36 (2010): 4974 for the analysis of sporadic uses of narrative yiqtol in different corpus parts:
such practice is not an evidence of the archaic language type due to its non-systemic character. The
requirement of systematicity, advocated in T. Notarius (The Verb in Archaic Biblical Poetry, pp. 273
274), correlates with Hurvitzs criterion of concentration; compare also the discussion in J. Joosten,
Pseudo-Classicisms in Late Biblical Hebrew, in Ben Sira, and in Qumran Hebrew, in Sirach, Scrolls,
and Sages (ed. T. Muraoka and J. F. Elwolde; Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 146159.
4. See N. Pat-El and A. Wilson-Wright, Features of Archaic Biblical Hebrew; P. Bekins,
Transitivity and Object Marking in Biblical Hebrew: An Investigation of the Object Preposition et
(Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2014); P. Bekins, Object Marking; on the role of the linguistic typology in
Biblical Hebrew historical studies see the discussion in T. Notarius, The Second Person Volitives in
Hebrew and Ancient North-West Semitic, in Advances in Biblical Hebrew Linguistics: Data, Methods,
and Analyses (ed. A. Moshavi and T. Notarius; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2017), pp. 101125.
5. Compare the analysis in P. Bekins, Object Marking; S. Sanders, Dating the Earliest Hebrew
Verbal System: The Role of Dialect Variety in Ancient Linguistic Change, in Dennis Pardee
Festschrift (forthcoming); T. Notarius, Narrative Tenses in Archaic Hebrew in the NWS Linguistic
Context, in Neue Beitrge zur Semitistik. Fnftes Treffen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Semitistik in der
Deutschen Morgenlndischen Gesellschaft vom 15.17. Februar an der Universitt Basel (ed. V.
Golinets, H. Jenni, H.-P. Mathys, and S. Sarasin; Mnster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2015), pp. 223246.
6. Compare A. Gianto, Archaic Biblical Hebrew, in A Handbook of Biblical Hebrew (ed. W.
R. Garr and S. E. Fassberg; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2016), pp. 1929; G. Rendsburg, Hurvitz
Redux: On the Continued Scholarly Inattention to a Simple Principle of Hebrew Philology, in Biblical
Hebrew: Chronology and Typology (ed. I. Young; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2003), pp. 104128;
J. Naud, The Transitions of Biblical Hebrew in the Perspective of Language Change and Diffusion,
in Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology (ed. I. Young; London: Clark, 2003), pp. 150
163.
7. On the linguistic diversity in the Ugaritic corpus see D. Pardee, The Ugaritic Texts and the
Origins of West Semitic Literary Composition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); El-Amarna
Canaano-AkkadianE. von Dassow, Canaanite in Cuneiform. JAOS 124 (2004): 641674; E. von
Dassow, Peripheral Akkadian Dialects, or Akkadography of Local Languages? in Language in the
Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 53rd Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (ed. L. Kogan et

83
Tania Notarius

strates considerable linguistic diversity as well, apparently in correlation

with different dialects and stylistic conventions.8
Particularly striking is that selected linguistic features of proto-Hebrew
correlate with some phenomena of Late Biblical Hebrew; one has to dis-
tinguish between the genuine Late Biblical Hebrew phenomena that peri-
odically appear in some parts of the corpus, indicating a non-consistent,
mixed language type, and phenomena merely reminiscent of Late Biblical
Hebrew usages but that actually, by means of explicit typological and sys-
temic differentiation, can be interpreted as genuinely archaic.9 There may
be different explanation for these random Archaic Biblical Hebrew / Late
Biblical Hebrew correlations. On the one hand, some Late Biblical
Hebrew phenomena may be remnants of dialects other than Classical Bib-
lical Hebrew, but continued from Archaic Biblical Hebrew. On the other
hand, these correlations may be sporadic, caused by circularity of linguis-
tic change and typical developmental paths. Only if a phenomenon is rep-
resented as an initial stage of linguistic development rooted in otherwise
consistent archaic language type can it be taken as an illustration of the
archaic language type of Biblical Hebrew.10

al.; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), pp. 895926; Old AramaicJ. Tropper, Dialeckvielfalt und
Sprachwandel im fruhen Aramaischen Soziolinguistische berlegungen, in The World of the
Aramaeans III: Studies in Language and Literature in Honour of Paul-Eugene Dion (ed. P. M. M.
Daviau, J. W. Wevers, and M. Weigl; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001), pp. 213222; Phoenician
epigraphyH. Gzella, The Linguistic Position of Old Byblian, in Linguistic Studies in Phoenician
(ed. R. D. Holmstedt and A. Schade; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), pp. 170198; and compare also
S. Sanders, Dating the Earliest Hebrew Verbal System. For a case study in Judean dialectology
compare G. Rendsburg and W. Schniedewind, The Siloam Tunnel Inscription: Historical and
Linguistic Perspectives, IEJ 60 (2010): 188203.
8. Compare the discussion in T. Notarius, Narrative Tenses in Archaic Hebrew. For different
dialectal features in some parts of the corpus see G. Rendsburg, Israelian Hebrew Features in Genesis
49, Maarav 8 (1992): 161170; G. Rendsburg, A Comprehensive Guide to Israelian Hebrew:
Grammar and Lexicon, Orient 38 (2003): 535; G. Rendsburg, Israelian Hebrew Features in
Deuteronomy 33, in Mishneh Todah (ed. N. S. Fox, D. A. Glatt-Gilad, and M. J. Williams; Winona
Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), pp. 167183; S. Izreel, Canaanite Varieties in the Second Millennium BC:
Can We Dispense with Anachronism? Orient 38 (2003): 66104; E. A. Knauf, Deborahs Language:
Judges Ch. 5 in Its Hebrew and Semitic Context, in Studia Semitica et Semitohamitica (ed. B. Burtea,
J. Tropper, and H. Younansardaroud; Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2005), pp. 167182.
9. Compare the discussion in D. A. Robertson, Linguistic Evidence; C. H. Gordon, North
Israelite Influence on Postexilic Hebrew, Israelite Exploration Journal 5 (1955): 8588; S. Gevirtz,
Of Syntax and Style in the Late Biblical HebrewOld Canaanite Connection, JANES 18 (1986):
2529; T. Notarius, The Verb in Archaic Biblical Poetry, pp. 299302. For a case of the second person
volitives compare T. Notarius, The Second Person Volitives, pp. 117118.
10. In terms of the present approach, this will be a principle of linguistic continuity, absent
from Hurvitzs method: the contextualization of a phenomenon within the continuous linguistic
development is an important condition of historical-linguistic analysis; see the discussion in T. Notarius,
Historical Linguistics Is Not Text-Dating (a review-essay of Dong-Hyuk Kim, Early Biblical
Hebrew, Late Biblical Hebrew, and Linguistic Variability: A Sociolinguistic Evaluation of the
Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts), HS 55 (2014): 101109.

84
 Lexical Isoglosses

All in all, the assumption of Archaic Biblical Hebrew, fragmentarily

attested in some biblical material, is a hypothesis that allows for the ex-
planation of the given data in the most economical and non-contradictory
way. This assumption is not without problems. Perhaps the main difficulty
with positing a pre-classical stage in Biblical Hebrew linguistic develop-
ment is the chronological gap between the potential commitment to
writing of the old poems and the date of their assumed early composition.
If, as follows from the most recent socio-linguistic investigations, most of
the Classical Biblical Hebrew writings were literarily shaped during the
last two centuries preceding the final collapse of Judah in 586 BCE,
namely in Late Neo-Assyrian and Early Neo-Babylonian periods, the old
poems should have been composed a couple of centuries earlier, and if not
written, transmitted orally in a relatively authentic form.11

2. THE OLD POEMS: A CHALLENGE OF ORALITY AND LITERARIZATION

The socio-linguistic patterns of the oral textuality have been investi-

gated for different literary traditions.12 Recently Aaron Koller addressed
the problem of proper literary comparanda for the Song of Deborah:13

11. See the socio-linguistic investigation of S. L. Sanders, The Invention of Hebrew (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2009); W. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994); W. Schniedewind, A Social History of Hebrew (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2013); J. Naud, Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew and a Theory of Language Change
and Diffusion, in Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew (ed. C. Miller-Naud and Z. Zevit; Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 2012), pp. 6182. The conclusion is based on complex archaeological and epigraphic data,
compare I. Finkelstein and N. Silverman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology: New Vision of Ancient
Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Free, 2001); D. Carr, The Formation of the Hebrew
Bible: A New Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); S. Faigenbaum-Golovin, A.
Shaus, B. Sober, D. Levin, N. Naaman, B. Sass, E. Turkel, E. Piasetzky, and I. Finkelstein,
Algorithmic Handwriting Analysis of Judahs Military Correspondence Sheds Light on Composition
of Biblical Texts, PNAS 113.17 (2016): 46644669.
12. On the dichotomy of orality and textuality in general and in application to different literary
traditions see, for example, J. Rubanovich, ed., Orality and Textuality in the Iranian World: Patterns
of Interaction across the Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2015); C. Cooper, ed., Politics of Orality: Orality
and Literacy in Ancient Greece (vol. 6; Leiden: Brill, 2007); M. Bachvarova, From Hittite to Homer:
the Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). For
the Homeric question, see F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and C. Tsagalis, eds., Homeric Contexts:
Neoanalysis and the Interpretation of Oral Poetry (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012). On patterns of orality in
application to Ancient Hebrew literature, see S. Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient
Israelite Literature (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996); D. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the
Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); J. M. Hutton, The
Transjordanian Palimpsest: The Overwritten Texts of Personal Exile and Transformation in the
Deuteronomistic History (Berlin: de Gruyer, 2009).
13. A. Koller, The Song of Deborah (lecture given at the University of Haifa in May 2016).
I thank the author for allowing me the use of his manuscript.

85
Tania Notarius

he turns to two blocks of datathe Egyptian military poetic texts of

Ramesses and Merenptah14 and Arabic poetry.15
In spite of many shared features, the Egyptian and Arabic models rep-
resent different types of textuality: the Egyptian military songs were com-
posed and put into writing promptly after the relevant historical events
(together with parallel prose reports), while the Arabic oral poetic compo-
sitions were preserved in oral transmission for centuries before being com-
mitted to writing.16 Although the Egyptian model involves material
chronologically closer to the biblical poems, Koller concludes that the
Arabic model is closer typologically and provides a better parallel for
the old Hebrew military songs.17 This model suggests that since the

14. Koller was concerned primarily with the Kadesh texts, which includes the poetic account
of Ramessess famous battle at Kadesh in 1274 BCE; see A. Gardiner, The Kadesh Inscriptions of
Ramesses II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960); M. Lichtheim, The Kadesh Battle Inscriptions
of Ramses II, in Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings, vol 2: The New Kingdom (M.
Lichtheim; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 5772; B. Ockinga, On the
Interpretation of the Kadesh Record, Chronique d'gyptologie 62 (1987): 3848; A. J. Spalinger, The
Transformation of an Ancient Egyptian Narrative: P. Sallier III and the Battle of Kadesh (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 2002). Following Lichtheim, Koller emphasizes that the epic poem was a new and
atypical genre of Egyptian poetry.
15. Both pre-Classical and oral Bedouin poetry are relevant for the discussion; see A. Musil,
The Manners and Customs of the Rwala Bedouins (New York: American Geographic Society, 1928);
J. Monroe, Oral Composition in Pre-Islamic Poetry: The Problem of Authenticity, Journal of Arabic
Literature 3 (1972): 153; M. V. McDonald, Orally Transmitted Poetry in Pre-Islamic Arabia and
Other Pre-Literate Societies, Journal of Arabic Literature 9 (1978): 1431; C. Bailey, Bedouin Poetry
from Sinai and the Negev: Mirror of a Culture (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991); A. Sowayan, Nabai Poetry:
The Oral Poetry of Arabia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); M. Zwettler, The Oral
Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1978); M. Kurpershoek,
Oral Poetry and Narratives from Central Arabia: An Edition with Translation and Introduction (vol.
12; Leiden: Brill, 19941995).
16. Koller admits that the narrative framework is compatible only with the Egyptian model,
but many examples from oral Bedouin literature indicate that this is not necessarily the case; see the
corpus of H. Palva, Artistic Colloquial Arabic: Traditional Narratives and Poems from al-Balqa'
(Jordan) (StudOr 69; Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1992) or M. Kurpershoek, Oral Poetry and
Narratives, which attest to the consistent combination of narrative framework and poetry. C. Bailey,
Bedouin Culture in the Bible (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017) brings typical examples of
Bedouin poems and narrative frameworks transmitted together and compares this pattern to the biblical
cases of Judges 45 and Exodus 1415; he notices that while poems are transmitted with a considerable
degree of accuracy, the narrative frameworks are more flexible and unsettled.
17. The conclusion is rooted in the factor of regionality, namely the idea that some cultural
patterns are stable in certain regions within a consistent type of population; see E. J. van der Steen,
Tribes and Territories in Transition: The Central East Jordan Valley in the Late Bronze Age and Early
Iron Ages (Leuven: Peeters, 2004); E. J. van der Steen, Near Eastern Tribal Societies during the
Nineteenth Century: Economy, Society and Politics between Tent and Town (Sheffield: Equinox, 2013).
Although a direct comparison between ancient and modern tribal communities must be carried out with
caution, a better understanding of modern structure provides useful insights into the history of the past;
compare the introductory considerations in C. Bailey, A Culture of Desert Survival (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2004), pp. ixxv, 12. Some general conceptions of tribalism and institutionalism are
nowadays consistently applied in the archaeological, ethnographic, and historical study on the Ancient

86
 Lexical Isoglosses

(semi-)nomadic society is to a great extent illiterate (or at least that writing

plays a limited role in it), orality is a main avenue for preserving infor-
mation and transmitting texts, poems in particular. Koller considers pos-
sible limits to the life-span of the orally transmitted poetic composition
about two to three centuries.18 Broader comparative literary material
confirms this basic assumption; in different cultural environments, there
are examples of poetic compositions surviving centuries of oral transmis-
sion and exhibiting typologically archaic language in comparison to that
of the period of their written stabilization.19

Near East; compare J. Szuchman, ed., Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East: Cross-
Disciplinary Perspectives (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2009).
18. M. V. McDonald, Orally Transmitted Poetry, p. 30 estimates the period of oral
transmission of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry as about 250 years. Of particular interest are concrete cases
attesting several generations of oral transmission: according to M. Kurpershoek, Oral Poetry and
Narratives, 2:3, poems survived in a Bedouin clan for four generations, namely for some 120 years;
compare also C. Bailey, The Narrative Context of the Bedouin Qada-Poem, Mihkare Hamirkaz
Leheker Hafolqlor 3 (1972): 67105 reports that the song that he heard from his informant, was already
recorded by Musil (A. Musil, The Manners and Customs) some eighty years earlier, and C. Bailey,
Bedouin Poetry, pp. 122123 represents the text as it arrived in five different recordings, the oldest of
them dating to the mid-nineteenth century. Although the versions differ, the differences are mostly of
quantitative rather than qualitative character, namely, the passages that coincide are textually quite
consistent. The oral Soqotri corpus of V. Naumkin and L. Kogan, eds., Corpus of Soqotri Oral
Literature (vol. 1; Leiden: Brill, 2015), recorded at the beginning of the twenty-first century, includes
many songs that were already published by D. H. Mller, Die Mehri- und Soqori-Sprache (vols. 13;
Wien: Hlder, 19021907) and remained mostly untouched during these hundred years of oral
transmission, while Mller himself estimated that they were old folklore songs. On the status of an oral
literary composition, compare F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and C. Tsagalis, Homeric Contexts, p. 6: a
memorized oral text, i.e. one that is substantially stabilized, is equivalent to a written text.
19. According to D. Pardee, The Ugaritic Texts, p. 25, the Ugaritic epic texts, linguistically
different from the prose corpus, represent the written form of oral traditions that go back centuries if
not millennia; for different theories about Ilimilkuthe scribe who put these compositions to writing,
see pp. 4648. Sabaean written culture includes the official register of monumental and dedicatory
inscriptions on stone and the vernacular register of miniscule texts on wooden sticks, which in practice
represent the same linguistic system, but some very rare poetic pieces are strikingly different
linguistically; compare P. Stein, Aspekte von Sprachbewusstsein im antiken Sdarabien, in
Sprachbewusstsein und Sprachkonzepte im Alten Orient, Alten Testament und rabbinischen Judentum
(ed. J. Thon, G. Veltri, and E.-J. Waschke; Halle: ZIRS, 2012), pp. 3942. According to Steins
evaluation, the scarce representation of poetic genres does not imply their non-existence, but rather their
primary setting within the realm of oral transmission. An extreme case is the Avestan corpus: according
to scholarly estimation, a thousand years of careful oral transmission of texts in an ancient and mostly
obscure dialect separate the literary stabilization of this corpus in oral tradition and the writing; compare
A. Cantera, ed., The Transmission of the Avesta (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012); V. Naumkin and L.
Kogan (Corpus of Soqotri Oral Literature) emphasize in the commentaries that many songs in the
Soqotri corpus have an archaic linguistic shape, contrasted to the contemporary Soqotri vernacular. As
for the Bedouin setting, H. Palva, Artistic Colloquial Arabic, p. 148 notices: As the result of the fixed
form of poetry, many linguistic features occurring in poems are carried together with the poems from
one dialect area to another without essential changes. It is therefore only natural that the poetic language
in a large area is relatively homogeneous. It is also more homogeneous than the language of oral
narrative style, whichlacks a fixed form and is therefore more subjected to the influence of the local
dialect. For the role of poetic structure in preserving archaic features, compare J. Tropper, Sprachliche

87
Tania Notarius

However, the dichotomy of orality and writing can be quite mis-

leading, at least for ancient Israel, and a nuanced approach to the problem
of the literary status of old Hebrew poems is required; the oral transmis-
sion of these poems does not contradict their sporadic reduction to writing,
and, conversely, committing a poem to writing does not preclude further
oral transmission.20 The old Hebrew poems disclose profound dependence
on the literary motifs and stylistic conventions of ancient Near Eastern,
particularly Old Canaanite, literature, to be depicted as products of a
primitive illiterate tribal society;21 it is quite clear that we are dealing with
professional poetry.22
The question of the level and functionality of literacy in Ancient Israel
remains a debated issue: scholars have claimed that the intensive epi-
graphic activity in the Late Iron Age (late ninth to early sixth centuries
BCE) points to the on-going literary process,23 but there are a considerable

Archaismen im Parallelismus membrorum in der akkadischen und ugaritischen Epik, AuOr 16 (1998):
103110.
20. Compare, for example, to the notion of an oral-literate continuum (S. Niditch, Oral
World and Written Word, p. 44), on which considerable scholarly consensus has been reached; see in
more detail J. N. Whisenant, Writing, Literacy, and Textual Transmission: The Production of Literary
Documents in Iron Age Judah and the Composition of the Hebrew Bible (Ph.D. diss., The University
of Michigan, 2008). The possibility that parts of the archaic corpus were transmitted in ancient
anthologies like The Book of Yashar is discussed in E. L. Greenstein, What Was the Book of
Yashar? Maarav 21 (2017): 2536.
21. The channels that provide for literary continuity between the Old Canaanite and Early
Israelite cultural environments may have been of different character, but certain scribal heredity
between two layers is to be seriously considered; see A. Lemaire, West Semitic Epigraphy and the
History of Levant during the 12th10th Centuries BCE, in The Ancient Near East in the 12th10th
Centuries BCE: Culture and History (ed. G. Galil, A. Gilboa, A. M. Maier, and D. Kahn; Munster:
Ugarit-Verlag, 2012), pp. 291307; A. Millard, Scripts and Their Uses in the 12th10th Centuries
BCE, in The Ancient Near East in the 12th-10th Centuries BCE: Culture and History (ed. G. Galil, A.
Gilboa, A. M. Maier, and D. Kahn; Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2012), pp. 405412; and compare the data
in V. Horowitz, T. Oshima, and S. L. Sanders, Cuneiform in Canaan (Jerusalem: The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, 2006).
22. On traditional poetry as professional, compare M. V. McDonald, Orally Transmitted
Poetry, p. 23. McDonald emphasizes that professional poets are those who do it for a living, but
moreover professional poetry is part of the literary process, has high social status, and is a matter of
learning and skillfulness (see N. I. Azarova, D. Kuzmin, V. A. Plungjan, et al, Poezija: Uchebnik
[Moskva: OGI, 2016], pp. 5165).
23. Compare note 11 above and see also the discussion in C. A. Rollston, Writing and Literacy
in the World of Ancient Israel (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010); an example of the poetic
writing is the ink inscription from Kuntillet Ajrud, see S. Aituv, E. Eshel, and Z. Meshel, The
Inscriptions, in Kuntillet Ajrud. An Iron Age Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border (ed. Z. Meshel;
Jerusalem: Carta, 2012), pp. 110114. Compare S. Aituv, Notes on the Kuntillet `Ajrud Inscriptions,
in See, I Will Bring a Scroll Recounting What Befell Me (Ps 40:8) (ed. E. Eshel and Y. Levin;
Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), p. 36: We propose that the scribe who physically wrote
this poemwas not its composer. he quoted a poetic theophany text, probably from memory.
Reading these lines one is reminded of the theophany descriptions in the Scriptures. this must have
been a text that already had been considered a classic.

88
 Lexical Isoglosses

number of epigraphists who suggest that already in the tenth to early ninth
centuries BCE alphabetic writing in Canaan was sufficiently developed
for sporadic literary production.24 These debates turn the scholarly focus
from the moment of writing to the moment of literarizationa moment
when a poem is shaped as a literary piece, either in its oral or written form.
Definitely, the literarization of a text does not mean that further transmis-
sion, whether oral or written, precludes textual flexibility; however, pro-
fessional poets, reciters, and scribes would always have access to the
authentic literary piece.
The epigraphic and historical-archaeological data together with typo-
logical cross-cultural patterns allow us to establish some major milestones
in the literarization process of the old Israelite poems. The stage of early
literarization, dating approximately to the beginning of the monarchic
period or a bit earlier, presupposes poetic composition by professional
poets followed by their oral, sporadically written, transmission. The deci-
sive point at which the poems were committed to writing must have
occurred several centuries later, around the end of the monarchic period,
as part of the general First Temple period literary process. Actually this
process of the late literarization was also the stage of the early perception
of old songs. Practically, the perception process copes with philological
problemsglosses, word changes, or rewriting are acceptable practice in
this situation. However, it is striking that the general archaic linguistic
structure as well as many genuine philological cruxes remained, pointing
at the high literary status and the relatively careful maintenance of the
poetic textual material.

24. Compare M. Richelle, Elusive Scrolls: Could Any Hebrew Literature Have Been Written
Prior to the Eighth Century BCE? VT 66 (2016): 592: to the question: Could any Hebrew literature
have been written in the early royal period?, the answer of an epigrapher is definitively positive.
Richelle brings two main epigraphic arguments: there are up to thirty-six alphabetic inscriptions from
the Southern Levant from that period, implying that statistically many more texts were around; the
corpus of seals and bullae points to the widespread practice of sealing papyri. M. Richelle, Elusive
Scrolls, p. 593 claims: This is not to say that we should dismiss orality as a means of composing
literary works; in fact, there may have been an interaction, even a continuum between Israelite orality
and literacy. See also the discussion in S. Aituv and A. Mazar, The Inscriptions from Tel Reov and
Their Contribution to the Study of Script and Writing during Iron Age IIA, in See, I Will Bring a
Scroll Recounting What Befell Me (Ps 40:8) (ed. E. Eshel and Y. Levin; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2014), pp. 3968; A. Demsky, Literacy in Ancient Israel (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 2012);
and A. Demsky, Researching Literacy in Ancient Israel: New Approaches and Recent Developments,
in See, I Will Bring a Scroll Recounting What Befell Me (Ps 40:8) (ed. E. Eshel and Y. Levin;
Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), pp. 89104; A. Millard, The Knowledge of Writing in
Late Bronze Age Palestine, in Languages and Cultures in Contact: At the Crossroads of Civilizations
in the Syro-Mesopotamian Realm: Proceedings of the 42nd Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale
(ed. K. Van Lerberghe and G. Voet; Louvain: Peeters, 1999), pp. 317326.

89
Tania Notarius

In what follows, I will deal with words that belonged to Classical

Biblical Hebrew vocabulary, but in a meaning different from their archaic
usage. The adaptation of old usages is not always smooth, causing mis-
understanding and glossing; I claim that if a word belonged to the
Classical Biblical Hebrew lexicon and moreover continued into Late
Biblical Hebrew, but had a different meaning in Archaic Biblical Hebrew,
which was nevertheless preserved and transmitted by ancient scribes, this
word should be considered an archaic isogloss.

3. ARCHAIC HEBREW FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE LEXICON

Although lexical research has always been an important part of

Archaic Biblical Hebrew research,25 a more systematic study of the proto-
Hebrew lexicon is in order, especially in view of the renewed interest in
lexical isoglosses in Semitic languages.26 I suggest two case studies of a
phenomenon that is particularly notable for Archaic Biblical Hebrew
lexemes common to both Archaic Biblical Hebrew and Classical Biblical
Hebrew, with a non-standard meaning in Archaic Biblical Hebrew.

Scorched, Broken, Defeated (Deut 32:31)

3.1.

(1)


Indeed their Rock is not like our Rock, and our enemies are parched with
thirst/defeated. (Deut 32:31)

The form is used rarely in the Hebrew Biblehere, in Exod

21:22, and in Job 31:11but the root pll and its derivatives are well
attested.27 The verse has a long history of interpretation. The LXX trans-

25. For lexical studies on Archaic Biblical Hebrew see the works of Stanley Gevirtz, and also
C. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena; C. Cohen, Pharaohs ;W. Dietrich, Hebraische
Hapaxlegomena in den Samuelbuchern, in Biblical Lexicology: Hebrew and Greek. Semantics
ExegesisTranslation (ed. J. Joosten, E. Bons, R. Hunziker-Rodewald, and R. Vergari; Berlin: de
Gruyter, 2015), pp. 103130; E. A. Knauf, Deborahs Language; compare also J. Tropper,
Sprachliche Archaismen, pp. 103110.
26. Compare note 12 above and compare L. Kogan, Genealogical Classification of Semitic:
The Lexical Isoglosses (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015) on the systematic study of the Semitic lexicon. The
present essay does not pretend to be sufficiently comprehensive and systematic, but illustrates the
discussion on selected phenomena.
27. Compare L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, , HALOT 3:933934; the form is the plural
of or ;in Job 31:11 is commonly emended to .

90
 Lexical Isoglosses

lates it as lacking in understanding ().28 Targum Onkelos trans-

lates judges, arbiters ( ;thus also Theodotion and Vulgate), most
probably in agreement with the interpretation accepted for Exod 21:22 (cf.
also in 4QRPa). On the basis of this tradition, Rashi emphasizes the typical
prophetic dichotomy in the enemies role: ,
And/but now our enemies judge us, because our Rock
has delivered us to them.29 The same interpretation is transformed seman-
tically on the basis of some syntactic considerations: Mirsky, 30 following
Ibn Ezra, reads with the negative particle due to ellipsis: our enemies
are not judges (wise men, able to understand); some insist on the rhe-
torical interrogative value of the verse: Are our enemies judges?31 A
different interpretation comes from the Hexapla group of sources:
Symmacus has and the Syro-Hexapla qyry violent; perhaps this
meaning is derived from the interpretation of the adjective in Job
31:11.32
However, the interpretation of as judges is doubtful even for
Exod 21:22. Speiser made a strong case for the meaning estimate,
considerations in both cases: Exod 21:22according to estimate (of the
miscarriage harm); Deut 32:31even in our enemies estimation.33
His interpretation of the latter case, however, looks forced (why should

28. The suggestion that the Urtext had seems farfetched.

29. Compare also P. C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976),
p. 386: the enemies of the people of God could be instrumental in the execution of Gods judgment.
However, the original meaning of the whole passage in Deut 32:2833 is hardly Deuteronomistic;
compare T. Notarius, The Verb in Archaic Biblical Poetry, p. 75 n. 8.
30. A. Mirsky, :( The book of Deuteronomy: Daat Mikra commentary;
Jerusalem: Musad Ha-Rav Kuk, 2001).
31. Compare R. D. Nelson, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (Louisville: John Knox, 2002), p.
376; compare F. H. W. Gesenius, Gesenius Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch; trans. A. E. Cowley;
Oxford: Clarendon 1983) 156b; in Rambans interpretation our enemies are Israelites, since the
whole passage is the direct discourse of non-Israelites.
32. See Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt: sive, Veterum interpretum Graecorum in totum
Vetus Testamentum fragmenta (Oxonii: Typographeo Clarendoniano, 18711875), 1:322. This
semantic shift is illustrated by the targumic interpretation of Job 31:11 ()
and Job 31:11 (
): great sin suggests that both constituents are understood as synonymous.
33. See E. A. Speiser, The Stem PLL in Hebrew, JBL 82 (1963): 301306; compare also
D. L. Christensen, Deuteronomy 21:1034:12 (WBC 6b; Nashville: Nelson, 2002), pp. 811, 817. For
different juridical connotations of the term and the cognate root, see A. Berlin, On the Meaning of pll
in the Bible, RB 96 (1989): 345351; C. Cohen, The Ancient Critical Misunderstanding of Exodus
21:2225, in Mishneh Todah (ed. N. S. Fox, D. A. Glatt-Gilad, and M. J. Williams; Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 2009), pp. 437458; according to Y. Feder, Pleading Ones Case Before God: A Hittite
Analogy for , ZAW 125 (2013): 650653, the cognate prayer has Hittite equivalents.

91
Tania Notarius

the speaker care about the enemies estimation?), as was noticed by

Tigay.34
The etymology of the root pll, however, has not been systematically
considered in this respect. The root pll belongs to the oldest layer of the
Semitic lexicon and is attested in all the branches of Semitic, but with
broad semantic scope, disclosing the depth of semantic splits.35
Primarily, the root pll denotes a physical condition and change of state
(be scorched, parched; break, defeat). The Ugaritic root pll be
cracked, parched is evidence for this meaning.36 The interpretation cor-
relates with the Arabic falla break, notch; defeat, particularly with its
derivative filla upon which rain has not fallen, in which there is
nothing.37 Seemingly, the meaning break, defeat denotes an ingressive
aspect in application to the basic stative meaning: be parched, break
(stative, intransitive) [+ ingressive] => break, defeat (change-of-state,
transitive); compare also Syriac pll 2 break.38
On the other hand, the basic meaning of the physical condition (be
scorched, parched) prompted the meaning of emotional and cognitive
condition and activity (estimate, intercede, supplicate; control);
such a semantic shift is typologically substantiated and is very typical for
Semitic languages.39 This usage is evident in Hebrew pll assume, pro-

34. See J. H. Tigay, Deuteronomy: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 1996), p. 310: The parallel phrase their rock suggests that
this phrase means something like our enemies gods, and he emends to , (nor) are our
enemies guardians [equal to our Rock], based on the Akkadian plilu guardian, leader, used as an
epithet of deities, and suggesting a reversed word-order in construct chain, and compare p. 404 n. 132.
See also J. H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, p. 404 n. 135, and compare W. von Soden, Akkadisches
Handwrterbuch (Wiesbaden: Harrassovitz, 19651981), 2:813b and E. A. Speiser, PALIL and
Congeners: A Sampling of Apotropaic Symbols, AS 16 (1965): 389393.
35. This review does not deal with possible parallel roots, for example, the reduplicated plpl.
36. See G. del Olmo Lete and J. Sanmartn, A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the
Alphabetic Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2015), p. 672: pl nt dm y p pl nt dm[]il parched are the
furrows of the fields, O Shapsh, parched are the furrows of the field 1.6 IV 12 // 1.6 IV 1213; and
the references there; the translation of the element il is not clear. According to J. Tropper, Ugaritische
Grammatik (Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2000), p. 676, the verbal form pl is from pll G suffix conjugation
fem. pl. in present meaning vertrocknet sind die Furchen der Acker. The meaning search is
advocated in N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit: The Words of Ilimilku and His Colleagues
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), p. 137 (and the bibliography there).
37. See E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (8 vols.; London: Williams & Norgate, 1863
1885), pp. 24332434.
38. See M. Sokoloff, Syriac Lexicon: A Translation from the Latin, Correction, Expansion,
and Update of C. Brockelmanns Lexicon Syriacum (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), p. 1201, as for
the root pll 1 sprinkle a parallel to roots pwl and plpl is suggested.
39. Compare *rgz Hebrew tremblebe angry, *rd Hebrew trembleworry, *dwy
Akkadian be sickAramaic be miserable, feel sorry, *qw Arabic vomitHebrew dread, be
horrified, Syriac zw to be in motion, tremblebe afraid, Aramaic spd tremblelament or
eulogize, and in particular *bl Akkadian dry outHebrew, Ugaritic mourn which is the closest

92
 Lexical Isoglosses

nounce a judgment; intercede, pray and most of its derivatives.40 In

Sabaic the root pll is consistently used in the meaning ask for omen, im-
plore, supplicate.41 I tend to think that Akkadian pallu control, keep a
watch on is also semantically derived from this meaning.42
Additionally, the root develops the semantics of motion (go in front,
get away, descend, flee), particularly in South Semitic: compare
Geez fll, falla, falala descend, prolapse; Jibbali fll to make off, get
away, run away; Mahri fll make off, get away, flee;43 this usage is once
attested also in Sabaic.44
Out of this semantic spectrum in Deut 32:31 is best explained
according to the meaning of physical condition and change of state; the
form can be interpreted as either a stative verbal adjective or passive
participlescorched, parched; broken, defeated. The following verses
3233 confirm the imagery of dryness, parching, and destruction: -
Their vine comes
-
from the vinestock of Sodom, from the vineyards of Gomorrah; their
grapes are grapes of poison, their clusters are bitter. If the referent is
human enemies, the interpretation our enemies are parched (with
thirst) makes the best sense; in the context of the military song, the pas-
sive of the dynamicour enemies are broken, defeated is also good. If,
however, enemies stands metonymically for the land of enemies (this
metonymic shift looks justified in view of the parallelism to Rock of the
previous half-verse and of the following land description), the interpreta-
tion is the land of our enemies is parched, scorched, destroyed.

semantic parallel to the case under discussion. I am aware of the considerable semantic gap between
meanings be dry, parched > pray, mourn, estimate, but deriving different meanings from one root
is preferable over postulating separate roots without any phonetic justification.
40. See L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, HALOT 3:933934; E. A. Speiser, The Stem PLL
in Hebrew, pp. 301306.
41. See A. F. L. Beeston, fll, Sabaic Dictionary (English-French-Arabic) (Louvain: Peeters,
1982), p. 44. The search in the on-line Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions (CSAI) brought five clear
cases (FB-Maram Bilqs 1, Gl 1441 = Gl 1432 + 1433, Ja 628, Ja 718+Ja 785, Nm NAG 12). (Online:
dasi.humnet.unipi.it/index.php?id=25&prjId=1&corId=0&colId=0&navId =707844884&rl=yes).
42. See W. von Soden, pallu, Akkadisches Handwrterbuch, 2:813814; compare I. Gelb
et al., pallu II, The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
(Chicago: Oriental Institute, 19562006), pp. 5051; but pallu I go in the front, precede (the
examples are from literary texts) conjoins with the semantics of motion.
43. W. Leslau, fll, Comparative Dictionary of Geez (Classical Ethiopic) (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 1987), p. 159; T. M. Johnstone, fll, Jibbali Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1981), p. 57; T. M. Johnstone, fll, Mehri Lexicon and English-Mehri Word-List (London: University
of London, 1987), p. 93.
44. See A. F. L. Beeston, fll, Sabaic Dictionary, p. 44; according to a search in CSAI the
case is Ja 576+Ja 577 (Online: dasi.humnet.unipi.it/index.php?id=30&prjId=1&corId=0&colId
=0&navId=707844884&recId=9044&mark=09044%2C006%2C008).

93
Tania Notarius

The proper interpretation of ( Deut 32:31) points to a usage non-

typical for Classical Biblical Hebrew, but rooted in the oldest layer of the
Central Semitic lexicon (shared with Ugaritic and Arabic). This usage is
a lexical isogloss of Archaic Biblical Hebrew and goes back to the stage
of the early literarization of the song; strikingly it was preserved at the
stage of early perception.

3.2. Was (Judges 5:15)

(2)




Issachars leaders were with Deborah, and Issachar was/stood with Barak,
sent out to the valley among his infantry. (Judg 5:15ab)45

The Song of Deborah is a difficult text from all perspectives: textually,

poetically, and linguistically, and verse 15b represents typical difficulties.
completely.46 The form is not
The LXX omits the phrase
transparent and is interpreted either as an assertive or comparative
particle,47 or as a (substantivized) deverbal adjective true, loyal,

45. There are several problems in this verse: the forms and are not discussed in this
essay.
46. According to N. LaMontagne, The Song of Deborah (Judges 5): Meaning and Poetry in
the Septuagint (Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, 2013), p. 44 the omission of
in the LXX is due to the poetic expediency. Some manuscripts add ,
instead; compare Biblia Hebraica Quinta: Judges (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2011), pp.
60+ 61+: GL1O, not knowing what to do with this syntagm, omitted the translation. In an attempt to
fill the omission GBL2M made a doublet of instead of duplicating . The further
confusion in the Greek tradition was probably caused by this first omission. Also B. Lindars, Judges
15: A New Translation and Commentary (Edinburgh: Clark, 1995), pp. 256258 suggests that the
omission is unlikely to represent the O[ld] G[reek] or its Hebrew Vorlage. See H. Pfeiffer, Jahwes
Kommen von Suden: Jdc 5, Hab 3, Dtn 33 und Ps 68 in ihrem literaturund theologiegeschichtlichen
Umfeld (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), pp. 3132, 54 on the opposite claim that
is a gloss of the latest redactional layer; he does not explain, however, why in this case the glossator did
not use a standard comparative particle; this version is also followed in C. Levin, Das Alter des
Deboralieds, in Fortschreibungen: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (C. Levin; Berlin: de
Gruyter, 2003), pp. 124141; E. A. Knauf, Deborahs Language, p. 181 translates: while Baraq
broke into the brook-land.
47. For as a comparative compare C. L. Echols, Tell Me, O Muse: The Song of Deborah
(Judges 5) in the Light of Heroic Poetry (New York: Clark, 2008), p. 16; J. Sasson, Judges 112: A
New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), pp.
298299; M. S. Smith, Poetic Heroes, p. 255. This traditional interpretation is not without problems:
according to D. Barthlemy, Critique Textuelle De lAncien Testament: Josu, Juges, Ruth, Samuel,
Rois, Chroniques, Esdras, Nhmie, Esther (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), p. 87, one
would expect for simple marking, or before Issachar and in apodosis for a double marking (see
P. Joon and T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew [Roma: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2006],
174; compare E. Knig, Historisch-Comparative syntax der hebrischen Sprache [Leipzig: Hinrichs,

94
 Lexical Isoglosses

support.48 Both interpretations are awkward and present syntactic

difficulties.
The specific and apparently dialectal character of the Song of Deboras
language has been broadly discussed in the research,49 yet the form has
not been explored in this respect. I claim that the form is derived from the
root kwn with the meaning to be and presents a local Canaanite iso-
gloss.50 The root *kwn is an important Semitic lexical isogloss as demon-
strated by Kogan: according to his conclusions, *kwn be is attested in all
the branches of West-Semitic, including Proto-Northwest Semitic (with
some exceptions), while East-Semitic Akkadian knu to be firm, sta-
tionary; reliable, correct, together with the Hebrew and Aramaic counter-
parts, provides a suitable source of semantic development from which
the meaning to be was derived.51 In Northwest Semitic, the lexeme for
being separates Ugaritic, Old Canaanite, and Phoenician (kwn) from
Hebrew and Aramaic (hyy/hwy): the branching of Hebrew together with
Aramaic rather than with its Canaanite sister-tongues is noteworthy.52
In the Song of Debora the root hyy to be is not used at all, in contrast
to other parts of the archaic poetic corpus: compare Deut 32:38; Exod

1897], 371 for rare poetic cases gapping in the first member of a comparison); on the difficulties of
the adverbial interpretation compare C. F. Burney, The Book of Judges: With Introduction and Notes
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1918), p. 138. For assertive, compare T. C. Butler, Judges (WBC 8;
Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009), p. 114, Indeed, Issachar is right there with Barak but it is not quite
clear how exactly he understands the form , as there is no explicit discussion.
48. See C. F. Burney, The Book of Judges, pp. 137138, leal to Baraq; B. Lindars, Judges
15, p. 257, true to Baraq; and R. G. Boling, Judges: Introduction, Translation and Commentary
(Garden City: Doubleday, 1975), pp. 103, 112, Baraqs support, who connect the form to the root
kwn. A. Soggin, Judges: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), p. 89, a support relates it
to the Arabic kinnu or kinnu covering, protection (root knn). Burney emphasizes that the term is
related to the Akkadian knu reliable, faithful and Syriac kn steadfast, just. The problem is that the
adjective true, reliable in Hebrew or its cognate in Akkadian, even if referring to a persons will not
govern another argument, by means of a preposition or without it; in Amos 5:14 is used adverbially
and Job 9:35 is obscure.
49. See G. Rendsburg, Hurvitz Redux, pp. 122126 (as an answer to M. Waltisberg, Zum
Alter der Sprache des Deboraliedes Ri 5, ZAH 12 [1999]: 218232); E. A. Knauf, Deborahs
Language; C. L. Echols, Tell Me, O Muse, pp. 8385.
50. To the best of my knowledge, this interpretation has not yet been suggested. The New
International Version translates Judg 5:15b, yes, Issachar was with Barak, but it is not clear whether
the form is rendered by assertive yes, or by the verb was. At the site of the NIV project, neither
commentary nor explanation is provided.
51. See L. Kogan, Genealogical Classification of Semitic, pp. 8687; for kwn to be correct,
firm in Hebrew see above; for Syriac, compare M. Sokoloff, kwn, Syriac Lexicon, pp. 608609. The
data of Amorite about the verb to be is not clear; see V. Golinets, Das Verb im amurritischen
Onomastikon der altbabylonischen Zeit (Ph.D. diss., Universitat Leipzig, 2010), pp. 367368.
52. See L. Kogan, Genealogical Classification of Semitic, pp. 370373; compare p. 87: one
has to assume that this feature was once present in Proto-Canaanite, but then was lost in Hebrew and
replaced by the same new exponent as in the neighboring Aramaic.

95
Tania Notarius

15:2; Gen 49:15, 17, 26; 2 Sam 22:19, 24; Deut 33:5, 6, 7, 24; Num 23:10;
24:18, 22. The verbal form denotes a situation of locating and
positioningbe stationed, found itself, stand as is typical for this
lexeme in Ugaritic, rather than functioning as a verb of being or an
existential copula.53 The use of stative verbs for the description of tribes,
alongside nominal clauses, is characteristic for the Song (cf. v. 16,
v. 17).
The lack of prepositions on the argument can be explained in dif-
ferent ways, depending on what thematic role this argument represents. If
it denotes a beneficiary of the situation and the expected preposition is
together with, gapping is apparently at work: the preposition in the
first of two parallel lines
also has force in the second
line and Issachar was (with) Barak. However this is not
ellipsis in the strict sense of the word, since prepositional ellipsis is not
typical for Hebrew or cross-linguistically;54 it is rather a phenomenon of
vertical syntax in poetic languagecoordinated constituents are dis-
tributed between two parallel lines.55 Alternatively, if denotes loca-
tion (the army of) Baraq and the expected preposition is in, among,
in the midst of (cf., e.g., w ykn bnh b bt and may there be a son of his in
(his) house KTU 1.17 I 25, or v. 14 after you
Benjamin, among your tribes), the preposition was apparently omitted
due to haplography (or haplology) followed by another . Perhaps the
latter interpretation is preferable in view of the syntactic idiosyncrasy of
the former interpretation. Finally, one should not exclude possible textual
confusion in the reading.
This isogloss lines up the language of the Song of Deborah with the
local, apparently Northern, Canaanite vernacular, rather than with Judean
Hebrew, in addition to other data that call for the specific dialectal status

53. Compare G. del Olmo Lete and J. Sanmartn, A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language, p.
443; compare also C. R. Krahmalkov, Phoenician-Punic Dictionary (Leuven: Peeters, 2000), pp. 232
233. In El-Amarna Canaanite, the lexeme for be is Akkadian ba while the adjective knu has the
meaning true, reliable, loyal (cf. EA 89:14 and EA 162:19.23). I thank Krzysztof Baranowski who
discussed this issue with me.
54. The ellipsis of a preposition, as a rule, does not occur by itself: a preposition governed by
a verb or governing a noun will drop together with one of them; compare Mic 7:14 and the discussion
in C. Miller, A Linguistic Approach to Ellipsis in Biblical Poetry, BBR 13 (2003): 263. K. Gengel,
Pseudogapping and Ellipsis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 12 discusses the
ungrammaticality of partial ellipsis of prepositional phrases.
55. For coordination in vertical relation see D. Tsumura, Vertical Grammar of Parallelism in
Hebrew Poetry, JBL 128 (2009): 174.

96
 Lexical Isoglosses

of the Songs language. This feature is to be considered an archaic iso-

gloss, rather than a later loan; it is not replicated in Late Biblical Hebrew
and witnesses the linguistic diversity typical of the corpus of the old
poems.

4. CONCLUSION

Archaic Biblical Hebrew is an assumption that allows for the descrip-

tion of the linguistic data in the corpus of the ancient Hebrew poems in
the most economical and consistent way. The data are very meager and
complicated: the corpus is not homogeneous, archaic features are equally
diffused in the classical corpus, late features are sporadically reminiscent
of archaic ones. All in all, the principles of systematicity and linguistic
continuity allows for the description of numerous phenomena of proto-
Hebrew. Socio-linguistics plays an important role in the research. This
paper offers a preliminary discussion on the comparative socio-linguistic
and cross-cultural data concerning the process of the literarization of the
old poetic compositions into the Hebrew Bible. It is claimed that the oral
poetic compositions, sporadically committed to writing at the stage of
early literarization, could have predated by several centuries the stage of
their late literarization within the corpus of classical writings. The stage
of the late literarization was also the early perception stage; at all the
stages of transmission and perception, the textual and linguistic changes
were presumably occurring. It is noteworthy, however, that the archaic
language of the old songs was transmitted with a relatively high level of
accuracy due to the prestigious literary status of these compositions. A
systematic study of the lexicon of the poems is required to substantiate
this claim. In this paper two cases are investigated to exemplify a very
interesting phenomenonthe perception of Archaic Biblical Hebrew
lexemes whose use continues in the standard lexicon, but attest different
meanings in the proto-classical stage. It has been claimed that in
Deut 32:31 is to be understood as scorched, broken, defeated in agree-
ment with the meaning attested in Ugaritic and that in Judg 5:15 is a
form of the verb to be (a Canaanite isogloss).

97