Bo: How to spell ויהרג

Towards the end of parashat Bo (Shemot 13:15), we have the following pasuk, about Makkat Bechorot:

This pasuk, and the underlined word, comes into play in Menachot 29b.

ראמי בר תמרי דהוא חמוה דרמי בר דיקולי איפסיקא ליה כרעא דוי"ו דויהרג בניקבא אתא לקמיה דרבי זירא א"ל זיל אייתי ינוקא דלא חכים ולא טפש אי קרי ליה ויהרג כשר אי לא יהרג הוא ופסול

Rami bar Tamrei, who was the father-in-law of Rami bar Dikulei encountered a vav in ויהרג whose leg was severed with a hole [so that it looked like a yud]. He came before Rabbi Zera, who said to him: bring a child who is neither wise nor foolish. If he reads it ויהרג then it is kosher. If not, then it is יהרג and it is pasul.

To explain, if the vav is severed, then it perhaps looks like a yud. And recall that there are no nekudot in a Sefer Torah, only consonants. If the word is written ויהרג, then the word would be וַיַּהֲרֹג , vayaharog, “and He killed”. Meanwhile, if the verb were a passive verb, meaning “and he was killed”, then it would be וַיֵּהָרֵג. This is because the imperfect would be of the form yikkatev, יִכָּתֵב, with a chirik under the yud, gemination (doubling via dagesh) of the first root letter (kaf), kametz, second root letter (tav), tzeirei, and final root letter (vet). With a root of הרג, the first root letter is a guttural and so cannot receive gemination to double it. Instead, due to a process of compensatory lengthening, the chirik under the yud is lengthened to a tzeirei. And the vav hahipuch (va + gemination of the yud via a dagesh) turns the imperfect into a perfect.

If the word were ייהרג, then it would not conform to the typical spelling of words in Tanach. However, that would be valid in Mishnaic Hebrew as a way of writing יֵיהָרֵג, as a way of making the nikkud clear. We find this in the Mishna in Sotah 9:7 and Makkot 1:10, as well as in a few Yerushalmis and Bavlis.

Further, there is only a single instance of the word ויהרג in the Torah -- the pasuk in parashat Bo cited above. There are instances of the word in Nach, but recall that the question was whether the text was kasher or pasul, which makes more sense in the context of Torah.

Further, when looking only at the two words in sequence, one is a straightforward reading and the other is blaspheming. In the former, Hashem kills. In the latter, Hashem is killed. Putting aside any blasphemy, in the context on the pasuk, for someone who can read fluently and understand context, it is obvious that it is Hashem killing the firstborn of Egypt, rather than vice versa.

Rashi explains:

וי"ו דויהרג - כל בכור אירע במקום נקב ונראה כמין יו"ד:

דלא חכים - דאי חכים מבין שמחרף הוא לומר יהרג כלפי מעלה ואומר ויהרג:

לא טפש - שאם טפש אינו יודע לקרות אלא אות שלימה:

That is, because of the hole, it appeared something like a yud. If the child were wise, he would know that the passive reading was blasphemy and he would be influenced, perhaps inappropriately, to read it it as וַיַּהֲרֹג. And if the child were foolish, he would only know how to read a complete letter, and so couldn’t weigh in as to what the letter / word appears most like.

Tosafot there comments:

ואי לא יהרג הוא ופסול. יש לדקדק מכאן דכתיב ויהרג חסר בלא וי"ו. מ"ר:

“And if not, then it is יהרג and is pasul”: There is to deduce from here that it is written [consonantally, in the Torah] as ויהרג chaser without a vav [between the resh and the gimel for the cholam]. From the mouth of the Rav [=the Ri, Rabbi Yitzchak ben Shmuel HaZaken; See here.]

The implication of this deduction of Tosafot appears to be that, in the time of the Ri, there was some doubt as to the correct spelling of the Torah text, with some [all?] Sifrei Torah spelling the word malei. Otherwise, why bother to make such an observation.

To explain Tosafot, if the word in the Torah were spelled malei vav, with a vav between the resh and the gimel, then it would have to be the active verb, with a cholam, because if it were the passive verb, then there should be a tzeirei between the resh and the gimel. Since the gemara implies some ambiguity, the word must have been spelled chaser vav.

While this proof is pretty solid, one might have some doubt as to the strength of this proof. For one thing, if the gemara wanted to say that the implication is ייהרג, it could have easily put in an extra yud. Elsewhere, in Mishnayot and Gemarot, it makes use of the double-yud. Also, the idea that it is blaspheming is present in Rashi, but not in the gemara itself. Maybe it would have been interpreted as a smudge or dot, rather than being reinterpreted as a yud. It depends how vavs were written back then. E.g. from Bar Kochba’s letters, look at the vav of Shimon.

If so, then we could say that ואי לא יהרג הוא ופסול means that if not, it is yaharog, just without the initial vav. The word איפסקיה and the word כרעא imply a severing of part of it, though.

Looking at some manuscripts, we see that Ktav Yad Vatican has what we have in our gemara:

However, if we look at the Munich manuscript (top of the page),

we discover that the alternate reading is not provided. That is, while our printed texts have:

אי לא יהרג הוא ופסול

the Munich text has:

ואם לאו פסולה

such that we don’t know exactly how the non-ויהרג Torah text is to be read.

Looking at the Leiberman database, we see the following additional variants:

MENAHOT 29b Oxford - Bodl. heb. c. 17 (2661) 84-85 this:

דרבי זורא אמ ליה זי איתי ינוקא דלא חכים ולא טפיש אי קארי ליה ויהרג כשיר ואילא ייהרג

So it actually has ייהרג with two yuds. The others are not particularly interesting.

Vilna and Venice: essentially the same as Vatican, with the יהרג given.

There also is a variation whether it is the כרעא of the vav, or just the vav, which is severed.

Before moving on from the variant Talmudic texts, I’ll just note this. Our printed gemara has:

ראמי בר תמרי דהוא חמוה דרמי בר דיקולי

If I recall correctly, this was one of the examples the Noda BiYehuda gave of marrying someone who’s father had the same name -- thus, Rami married Rami’s daughter. But Soncino translates here “also known as” and comments in a footnote (2) that:

And we indeed see the word דהוא rather than דהוא חמוה. Also, I would note, this should be obvious. Tamrei and Dikulei both mean date-palm.

Minchas Shai comments on this pasuk, gemara, and Tosafot. (Indeed, the above was my own expansion after seeing Minchas Shai.)

ויהרג -- “There are sefarim which have it [ויהרוג] malei, with a vav after the resh, but it is apparent that it is chaser, from that which they say in Hakometz Rabba [that is, Menachot 29b:

רמי איפסיקא ליה כרעא דוא"ו  ויהרג בנוקבא -- to explain, the vav [in the beginning of ויהרג] occurred in the place of a hole [in the parchment] and it seemed like a yud.

אתא לקמיא דר’ זירא א”ל זיל אייתי ינוקא דלא חכים ולא טיפש -- to explain, that if he was wise, he would understand that it would be blaspheming to say ייהרג regarding the One On High, and so would say ויהרג

אי קרי ויהרג כשר ואי לא ייהרג הוא ופסול.

[End quote of the gemara.]

And the Ri [in Tosafot] comments that from here it is implied that ויהרג is chaser, without a vav between the resh and the gimel, end citation in the Aguda [?]. And see as well in the Mordechai, perek Hakometz.

And so too in the Masoret, it states: there are four which are malei in the language of hariga, namely:

1. וכל שריה אהרוג in Amos [2:3]
2. עת להרוג [in Kohelet 3:3]
3. כי נמכרנו אני ועמי להשמיד להרוג ולאבד [in Esther 7:4]
4. ולהרוג בשונאיהם [in Esther 9:16 -- we have וְהָרוֹג בְּשֹׂנְאֵיהֶם without the lamed. Thanks to MG.]

And it does not reckon ויהרג of here [in Shemot]. We thus deduce that it is chaser. And so too in sefer haTerumah and the Rama, za”l.

The Rama says this here:

The Mordechai (siman תתקנ”ג) to which Minchas Shai referred reads:

The Mordechai writes that it is spelled chaser in most sefarim, and that the ambiguity is evidence that it is chaser. And though it is not concrete proof [raayah], it is a zecher [supporting evidence].

Bat Paraoh's outstretched handmaiden, and peshat and derash

Shemot 2:5 reads:

“The daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her maidens were walking on the side of the Nile, and she saw the basket within the marsh, and she sent forth et-amata and took it.”

The word amata is ambiguous. Pharoah’s daughter might have stretched forth her hand (amah), or she might have sent forth her maidservant (amah). Her maidservants were mentioned earlier in the verse, and so this would be one of those many maidservants. But, stretching forth a hand to thereby take something also works well as a phrase.

Rashi discusses this ambiguity, and pits Chazal against dikduk:

her maidservant: Heb. אֲמָתָהּ, her maidservant. Our Sages (Sotah 12b), however, interpreted it as an expression meaning a hand. [The joint from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger is known as אַמָּה, hence the cubit measure bearing the name, אַמָּה, which is the length of the arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.] Following [the rules of] Hebrew grammar, however, it should have been vowelized אַמָּתָהּ, with a dagesh in the mem. They, however, interpreted אֶת אֲמָתָהּ to mean her hand, [that she stretched out her hand,] and her arm grew many cubits (אַמוֹת) [so that she could reach the basket]. [From Sotah 12b, Exod. Rabbah 1:23]

את אמתה: את שפחתה. ורבותינו דרשו לשון יד. אבל לפי דקדוק לשון הקודש היה לו להנקד אמתה מ"ם דגושה. והם דרשו את אמתה את ידה, שנשתרבבה אמתה אמות הרבה:

(This is a wonderful derash in which we get all three meanings -- maidservant, hand, or cubit. When translating this, I like to preserve the ambiguity by translating amata as “her hand-maiden.”)

Some would point to this Rashi and say -- perhaps simplistically and crudely -- that peshat in the pasuk must accord to dikduk. And so, the word means maiden. And Chazal are making things up which are not correct, due to a desire to fabricate, embellish, or even for lack of grammatical knowledge. And they cannot both be true, because either Pharaoh’s daughter fetched it or her maidservant did. Others might say -- perhaps in a more nuanced fashion -- that the peshat is indeed maiden, and the derash which invokes hand and cubit means to convey a deeper message, where that deep message might be a life-lesson (“Try, and you too can obtain things out of reach!”) or an insight into a theme or undercurrent in the Biblical narrative. (E.g. While the events seem a natural progression or happenstance, this supernatural stretching of her hands shows that divine guidance, which is surely a theme in the story.)

However, I would question whether we must really assign “maid” to the peshat and “hand” to the derash.

Consider Onkelos:

ב,ה וַתֵּרֶד בַּת-פַּרְעֹה לִרְחֹץ עַל-הַיְאֹר, וְנַעֲרֹתֶיהָ הֹלְכֹת עַל-יַד הַיְאֹר; וַתֵּרֶא אֶת-הַתֵּבָה בְּתוֹךְ הַסּוּף, וַתִּשְׁלַח אֶת-אֲמָתָהּ וַתִּקָּחֶהָ.

וּנְחַתַת בַּת פַּרְעֹה לְמִסְחֵי עַל נַהְרָא, וְעוּלֵימְתַהָא מְהַלְּכָן עַל כֵּיף נַהְרָא; וַחֲזָת יָת תֵּיבְתָא בְּגוֹ יַעְרָא, וְאוֹשֵׁיטַת יָת אַמְּתַהּ וּנְסֵיבְתַּהּ.

The word וְאוֹשֵׁיטַת means that she stretched something forth. And note how, in the Aramaic, they place a dagesh in the mem, just as Rashi asserted would need to stand in the Hebrew for it to mean “hand”. I suppose you could say that Onkelos is deviating from peshat in order to follow the midrash of Chazal, but maybe you could say that he either (a) disagreed from a dikduk perspective or (b) had a different nikkud.

Saadia Gaon, as well, translates this as hand in the Tafsir, his translation of Tanach:

Note the word yadha, “her hand”. He is not one to follow derash over peshat.

Perhaps we could look as well to the gemara in Sotah 12b:

ותשלח את אמתה ותקחה ר' יהודה ור' נחמיה חד אמר ידה וחד אמר שפחתה מ"ד ידה דכתיב אמתה ומ"ד שפחתה מדלא כתיב ידה ולמ"ד שפחתה הא אמרת בא גבריאל וחבטן בקרקע דשייר לה חדא דלאו אורחא דבת מלכא למיקם לחודה ולמאן דאמר ידה ליכתוב ידה הא קמ"ל דאישתרבב אישתרבובי דאמר מר וכן אתה מוצא באמתה של בת פרעה וכן אתה מוצא בשיני רשעים דכתיב (תהלים ג, ח) שני רשעים שברת ואמר ריש לקיש אל תיקרי שברת אלא שריבבתה

Or, in English:

And sent her handmaid to fetch it2  — R. Judah and R. Nehemiah [differ in their interpretation]; one said that the word means 'her hand' and the other said that it means 'her handmaid'. He who said that it means 'her hand' did so because it is written ammathah;7  he who said that it means 'her handmaid' did so because the text has not yadah [her hand]. But according to him who said that it means 'her handmaid', it has just been stated that Gabriel came and beat them to the ground!8  — He left her one, because it is not customary for a king's daughter to be unattended. But according to him who said that it means 'her hand', the text should have been yadah! — It teaches us that [her arm] became lengthened; for a master has said: You find it so9  with the arm of Pharaoh's daughter and similarly with the teeth of the wicked, as it is written: Thou hast broken [shibbarta] the teeth of the wicked,10  and Resh Lakish said: Read not shibbarta but shirbabta [thou has lengthened].11

(Shemot Rabba 1:23 is more or less the same.)

Before we get into the back-and-forth analysis by the setama degemara and the harmonization with other midrashim, we see that Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Nechemiah had this dispute as to the meaning of the word. They don’t discuss the nikkud of the word -- not even the gemara discusses the implication of the nikkud or dikduk arising from that nikkud. It is, rather, the implication of the word choice.

There is a possibility of arguing with the nikkud. Shadal, in his Vikuach al Chochmat Hakabbalah, points to the Rashi on this pasuk as determining peshat based on nikkud:

“For instance, Rashi za”l on the pasuk vatishlach et amata pushes off the Midrash of our Sages because of nikkud…”

And this is a cause for determining the age of trup and nekudot. Shadal agues that Chazal lacked the written signs (orthography) for nekudot, and in some places were therefore not fixed and were ambiguous. He offers various proofs to this end. For instance, no gemara talks about the written signs, and there are several places (he describes) where one would very much expect them to come up. If the trup and nekodot are post-Chazal, rather than e.g. halacha leMoshe miSinai, then one can (safely, theologically speaking) argue with them. After all, they just represent the opinion of the author of the trup / nekudot, rather than the definitive meaning as given by Hashem to Moshe.

The other day, I saw something surprising in Michlal Yofi (authored by Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Melech, Fez, Constantinople, 1548):

“וַתִּשְׁלַח -- a language of sending [an agent].

אֲמָתָהּ -- her maidservant. And some say that this word is divided in its pronunciation, for there are some who read it with a dagesh, as אַמָּתָהּ, from the [language of] אַמָּה אָרְכּוֹ [which has a dagesh]. And so does Rabbenu Saadia explain it in his [Judeo-]Arabic commentary, ומרת דרעהא [which is more or less what was about, with a “fa” in פמרת rather than a “va” in ומרת and דרעהא as “arm” rather than ידהא as “hand”] -- which would mean “and she sent forth her arm”. And according to this explanation, וַתִּשְׁלַח would be a language of extending.”

According to this, then, there is an actual dispute as to how the word is to be read, and the peshat would go along with it.

Having seen this, I looked again at Minchat Shai and saw that he said the same thing about Saadia Gaon having a different girsa in the reading of the pasuk:

He cites the midrash in Sotah and in Shemot Rabba, that it either means hand or maidservant. And then writes:

“And according to the one who darshens it as a language of hand, the aleph needs to be with a [full] patach and the mem with a dagesh [אַמָּתָהּ], like the girsa of Rabbenu Saadia, as well as in the Targum. And according to the one who darshens is as a language of maidservant, the aleph is with a chataf patach and the mem is weak [without a dagesh chazak], as it is in our sefarim. And so wrote Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Chizkuni. And see Mizrachi and Shorashim.”

Thus, Minchat Shai sees this as a dispute in the Masorah, as to what nekudot should appear in the Masoretic text. We have our tradition and apparently Saadia Gaon and Onkelos had a different tradition.

Are these two pronunciations really that distinct? Well, some who lain are quite medakdek in pronouncing and putting particular stress to those degeishim. For instance, listen to Rabbi Jeremy Weider, at the 1 minute 38 second mark, lain this pasuk:

וַתֵּרֶד בַּת פַּרְעֹה לִרְחֹץ עַל הַיְאֹר וְנַעֲרֹתֶיהָ הֹלְכֹת עַל יַד הַיְאֹר וַתֵּרֶא אֶת הַתֵּבָה בְּתוֹךְ הַסּוּף וַתִּשְׁלַח אֶת אֲמָתָהּ וַתִּקָּחֶהָ:

He lains:

vaTTeired bas-Par’oh lirchotz al-hay’or, vena’aroseha holechos al yad hay’or, vaTTeire es haTTeiva besoch haSSuf, vaTTishlach es-amasah vaTTiKacheha [should be vaTTiKKacheha].

This overstress and over-enunciation strikes me as a bit unnatural and ridiculous, even though many baalei kriyah do this.

Yes, it is true that the dagesh chazak represents the gemination -- that is, doubling -- of the letter. But this gemination is a natural feature of spoken language, while the deliberate overstressing of the dagesh feels anything but.

To digress for a bit, consider the word וַתֵּרֶד. The gemination of the letter Tav there means that the Tav works both to close the preceding syllable and open the next syllable. In Hebrew, short vowels (such as segol, chirik chaser and, in this case, patach) in unstressed syllables need to be closed. CVC, consonant vowel consonant. So, VAT is a closed syllable. Long vowels can be in open syllables. CV, that is, consonant vowel. So, TEI is an open syllable. Since we have geminated (doubled) the Tav, we have VaT-Tei.

The same analysis goes for the word ammatah. If it meant “hand”, then there would be a patach (a short vowel) and the syllable would need to be closed. By geminating the Mem, we get (recalling that aleph is a consonant) `aM-Ma-tah. If it meant “maidservant”, then the chataf patach under the aleph (which is a reduced kamatz) is a sheva na, and not something that needs to be part of a closed syllable. So with a chataf patach, we can have `a-Ma-tah, with no gemination of the Mem.

But this gemination might be something natural and slight, and something we all do in English. Think of the word “attack” or “attach”. Why it the letter t doubled? There are phonological rules at play, in which certain short vowels appear to cause a doubling of the following, where the long vowel will not. Compare platter vs. plater, matter vs. mater, happen, sadder, gladder, adder. And this geminated consonant might well be closing the first syllable and opening the second one, even though the distinction is quite slight. For instance, consider these words with short vowels, saying each a few times: happen [hap-pen] and rabbit [rab-bit] vs. rabid [ra-pid]. You might expend a very slight amount of time and energy on the doubled letter. But it is nothing at all light the gemination you hear baalei keria (like Rabbi Weider above) perform. In modern Hebrew as well, according to the rules of Hebrew grammer (and phonology and morphology), those degeishim are present. But I’ve never heard anyone speak like this, in normal, correct speech. I have doubts somewhat doubt that, throughout the generations, when people spoke Hebrew, they regularly doubled their consonants in a manner that feels so unnatural.

However, it could well be that this impression is due to my own deficiency and English-language bias. There are many languages out there which have gemination. See this Wikipedia article:

Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic, Berber, Catalan, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Classical Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin, and Tamil. Most languages (including English) do not have distinctive long consonants. Vowel length is distinctive in more languages than consonant length, although several languages feature both independently (as in Arabic, Japanese, Finnish, and Estonian), or have interdependent vowel and consonant length (as in Norwegian and Swedish).

So, since I am used to English, and lack familiarity with those languages which have distinctive consonant length, it sounds weird to me.

If the gemination of consonants is really something very slight, then the difference between amatah and ammatah would similarly be very slight. And, absent written signs for this gemination (via dagesh) and patach vs. chataf patach (invented post-Chazal), one could see how this was up in the air, and how Chazal could see both as legitimate possibilities. And the Masoretes wrote down what they heard, when they heard it, in one of those two ways.