Q30 MT Deut 16:7 tl#bw OV(l) – Possible difference in
1QDeuta 14 2 htl#bw pronunciation.^781
Q31 MT Deut 15:14 hwhy SV(1) – Interchange of divine ti-
1QDeutb 5 1 ynd[) tles.
781
According to E.Y. Kutscher, Language and Linguistic Background, 45-48, the afformative ht- on the
2ms perfect verb and the long form of the 2ms pronoun hk- are considered to be preserved archaic pronun-
ciations. These forms pertain to a high register of the language used in liturgical scriptural readings, called
‘standard’ vocalisation by Kutscher. The longer pronunciations stand against the short 2ms perfective ver-
bal afformative t- (t;@-) and the short pronominal suffix K- (K;@-). These forms were common to Mishnaic
Hebrew and were part of a ‘substandard’ vocalisation or lower register. Evidence for the different social
uses for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew can be found in the early first millennium rabbinic sources, for
which see M.H. Segal, Grammar, 2-5. It is the full spelling of these forms in Qumran Hebrew that Cross
identifies as ‘baroque’ orthography which was “devised as an attempt to preserve archaic elevated or poetic
speech, lost in vernacular or prosaic Hebrew” (F.M. Cross, "Some Notes," 4). For Kutscher “these two
types of Hebrew existed side by side in the ancient Jewish communities,” (Language and Linguistic Back-
ground, 46), whereas for Cross the ‘baroque’ orthography is “devised” and often “artificial” ("Some
Notes," 4). The process of linguistic change in the biblical text can be seen as two-fold, as has been summa-
rised by E. Qimron, "Observations on the History of Early Hebrew (1000 B.C.E.-200 C.E.) in the Light of
the Dead Sea Documents," The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (eds D. Dimant and U. Rappa-
port; STDJ 10 Leiden: Brill, 1992) 350-51: “during the Second Temple period, attempts are said to have
been made to write BH, but these were influenced by the spoken language, a type of MH; and at a later
period, scribes who copied texts written in MH are said to have changed them to bring them more into line
with BH.” The sociological role of this orthography has been described by W.M. Schniedewind, "Qumran
Hebrew as an Antilanguage," JBL 118, 2 (1999) 248, who suggests long Qumran Hebrew forms are not “a
peculiar dialect,” but rather a deliberate attempt to “mark off the sectarian texts from other Jewish literature
in their [the sectarians’] library.” The long pronominal and verbal forms are therefore seen as markers of an
“antilanguage created by conscious linguistic choices intended to set the speakers and their language apart
from others” ("Qumran Hebrew," 235). In "Why Did the Qumran Community Write in Hebrew?," JAOS
119, 1 (1999) 45, S. Weitzman goes a step further, seeing the Qumran community’s use of Hebrew in gen-
eral, and Qumran Hebrew in particular, as a way to affirm “through the avoidance of other ‘mundane’ lan-
guages ... its identity as a transcendent community, a symbolic gesture of its eternally valid status in a
world of competing ideologies and languages.” Each of these scholarly positions, while subtly different, all
consider that the long orthographic forms of pronouns and verbal affixes were, on some level, reflective of
a particular vocalisation of the text. Whether the morphology underlying these forms is archaic (Kutscher)
or archaising (Cross), and to what extent this reflects a socio-linguistic response to a contemporary political
situation (Schniedewind and Weitzman), is debatable. Even so, this study’s categorisation of long pro-
nominal and verbal forms as ‘possible differences in pronunciation’ is appropriate.