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Monday 5 January 2015

Using the music to help punctuate a verse of a Psalm

I enjoyed the article very much on the demonstrative pronoun זה. Thanks to Robert Holmstedt.

Here is my question for him. What do you think, dear readers of Dust? He is talking in detail - beautiful linguistic detail, of the phrase זֶ֥ה סִינַ֑י

Do you consider the atnach in Psalm 68:9 to assist in collecting the pairs of words? I don’t think it impacts your rejection of the genitive role of זה, but it does have an impact on the balance of 6 pairs on each side of ‘the parallelism’. Rather, I wonder if a 3/2 rhythm is implied instead of 2/3. If I punctuate it, it seems almost parenthetical. I am following Fishbane’s reading in Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, p55. The division agrees with the music very well. There is a minor cadence just before the parenthesis and the major midpoint cadence in the subdominant at the atenach.

אֶ֤רֶץ רָעָ֨שָׁה ׀ אַף־שָׁמַ֣יִם נָטְפוּ֮
מִפְּנֵ֪י אֱלֹ֫הִ֥ים זֶ֥ה סִינַ֑י
מִפְּנֵ֥י אֱ֝לֹהִ֗ים אֱלֹהֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל
Earth quaked, also the heavens dropped
from the presence of God, (that is Sinai)
from the presence of God, the God of Israel.

Here is the music for the verse.
Finally I have seen the contradictions between SHV and other systems. The systems need to be studied. But the first contradiction is between the oleh veyored and the atnach as interpreted in poetry and prose. That they should reverse their roles in the two sets of books seems very odd indeed. I don't believe it. I will complete my own study. Atnach acts in all 24 books the same way. oleh veyored is a secondary cadence in the Psalms, and is much rarer than the regular atnach. I will go get a book (or two) and see what can be learned. Actually, I already have a prepub copy of Mitchell and he reviews some of the issues. Also the atnach is far more common than the oleh-veyored even in the Psalms, and the latter always precedes the main cadence. So I doubt if a rationale can be found for reversing the roles.

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