In all cases the Ole cadence occurs first if both cadences are present. Job 3:4 on the poster in a prior post is a good example. You can see the first cadence in the middle of the fourth line of music and the second at the caesura on the fifth line. also interesting to note is that the ole veyored often occurs in the same poem several times (e.g. 5 times in Job 30, and 55% of the verses in Psalm 32). So here is Psalm 32 with the cadences marked. The brown ones are the ole-veyored ב֫ב֥ and the red ones are the atnah א֑. The music which we sang liturgically in early 2013 (in English) is here.
Notice how long verse 5 is, yet there is only one cadence. There is no attention to be drawn to the poet by pausing in the middle of the first 27 syllables but only to the result.
If you think about the content of the poem, the semantics of repentance and the cost of forgiveness, then the cadences make sense in all cases. I cannot hear any subservience of atnah to ole veyored. If anything, the cadence that is always first is secondary to the major rest point in the verse which is always the atnah.
Psalms 31-32 are strongly related, sharing over 40% of their words. Psalm 31 has 48% of its verses with an ole-veyored, Psalm 32 has 55%. Does this indicate a preference on the part of the ancient author/redactor, or is it an accident of the editing of the Masoretes? Perhaps it is a conceptual aspect of the poems. We don't have enough data quite yet to make a supportable conclusion.
It seems possible that there is internal evidence that might suggest the signs are as old as the text. (There is no external evidence known to me). As I have noted before, people assume that the accents just appeared with the Masoretes, that they invented them in the second half of the first millennium to indicate stress and that the signs happen to work as music too.
It seems possible that there is internal evidence that might suggest the signs are as old as the text. (There is no external evidence known to me). As I have noted before, people assume that the accents just appeared with the Masoretes, that they invented them in the second half of the first millennium to indicate stress and that the signs happen to work as music too.
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