Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMcClintock Biblical Encyclopedia: Semikin
Subjects in this Topic:
( ñîéëéï ), or Junctions, is a Masoretic term to denote “approaching, belonging together, connection,” of one word with another. Now, when two or more words are associated together through the addition or diminution of a letter or word, or by the interchange of words which are not in the habit of being joined in this manner, and if it only occurs so in one place, the Masorites remark thereon, ìéú ãñîé , i.e. “not extant so joined.” Thus, on åãâï åúéøù , and corn and wine (Gen_27:37), they remark “not extant so joined,” since in all other places where these two words occur the word ãâï has not the Vav conjunctive ( åé å äçéáåø áìé ); and thus the Masorah finalis under the letter Vav, p. 28 a, Colossians 2, 3, gives a list of sixty-two pairs, both words of which have Vav conjunctive, and are without parallel. The same remark is made on ùéú ùîéø , briers, thorns (Isa_27:4), since in all other places it is with Vav conjunctive. The sixteen pairs without the Vav conjunctive are given in the Masorah. The same remark is made on ùáúéï ùáú , Sabbatism, Sabbath (Exo_16:23), since in all other passages in which these two words are joined they are inverted. Thus in Exo_16:23 we read ùáúéï ùáú , but everywhere else ùáú ùáúåï . A list of thirty-nine instances which occur in this connection is given by the Masorah in the part entitled Various Readings ( ÷øéàä çìåôé ). See Frensdorff, Ochlah we- Ochlah, § 253, p. 50, 139 sq.; § 252, p. 50, 138 sq.; § 273, p. 53, 147 sq.; Levita, Massoreth Ha-Massoreth (ed. Ginsburg), p. 212 sq.; Buxtorf, Tiberias, sive Commentarius Masoreticus, p. 258 sq. (B.P.)