survivals from a period when even final vowels were not supported by a vowel-letter. Cf. also פֹּרָת fecunda (a fruitful tree) Gn 49; יִתְרָת abundance, Jer 48 (before ע; but in Is 15 יִתְרָה); שְׁנָת sleep (for שֵׁנָה) ψ 132; and (unless the ת is radical) in prose קָאָת pelican (which reading is also preferable, in Is 34, to the form קָאַת), also מָֽחֳרָת the morrow, but in construct state always ממחרַת.[1]—תְּהִלָּת Jer 45 Qerê is no doubt intended to indicate the reading תְּהִלָּתִי, parallel to מְשׂוֹשִׂי; cf. above, on זִמְרָת, &c.
[h] (c) ־ָא, the Aramaic orthography for ־ָה, chiefly in the later writers; זָרָא loathing, Nu 11; חָגָּא a terror, Is 19; שֵׁנָא sleep, ψ 127; לְבִיָּא a lioness, Ez 19 (unless לָבִיא is intended); מַטָּרָא a mark, La 3; cf. also דָּשָׁא threshing (participle Qal from דּוּשׁ) Jer 50; מָרָא bitter, Ru 1. On the other hand, according to the western Masora, קָרְחָה baldness is to be read in Ez 27; see Baer on the passage.
[i] (d) ־ֶה, an obtuse form of ־ָה (§ 27 u), only in הַזּוּרֶ֫ה for הַזּוּרָה Is 59 (unless it is again a forma mixta combining the active ptcp. masc. הַזּוֹרֶה and the passive ptcp. fem. הַזּוּרָה); cf. לָ֫נֶה for לָנָה Zc 5; אָ֫נֶה 1 K 2 (§ 90 i, and § 48 d).
[k] (e) ־֫ ־ָה without the tone, e.g. רָחָ֫מָה Dt 14 [Lv 11 רָחָם]; תַּנּוּר בֹּעֵ֫רָה an oven heated, Ho 7; cf. Ez. 40, 2 K 15, 16. In all those examples the usual tone-bearing ־ָה is perhaps intended, but the Punctuators, who considered the feminine ending inappropriate, produced a kind of locative form (see § 90 c) by the retraction of the tone. [In 2 K 16, Is 24, Ez 21 (note in each case the following ה), and in Jb 42, Ho 7, the text is probably in error.]
[l] (f) ־ַי, as an old feminine termination, preserved also in Syriac (ai; see examples in Nöldeke’s Syrische Gram, § 83), in Arabic and (contracted to ê) in Ethiopic, very probably occurs in the proper name שָׂרַי Sarai, cf. Nöldeke, ZDMG. xl. 183, and xlii. 484; also עֶשְׂרֵה ten (fem.) undoubtedly arises from an original ʿesray; so Wright, Comparative Grammar, p. 138; König, Lehrgebäude, ii. 427.
[m] 3. It is wholly incorrect to regard the vowel-ending ־ָה[2] as the original termination of the feminine, and the consonantal ending ־ַת as derived from it. The Ethiopic still has the ת throughout, so too the Assyrian (at, it); in Phoenician also the feminines end for the most part in ת, which is pronounced at in the words found in Greek and Latin authors; less frequently in א (see Gesenius, Monumm. Phoen., pp. 439, 440; Schröder, Phön. Sprache, p. 169 ff.). The ancient Arabic has the obtuse ending (ah) almost exclusively in pause; in modern Arabic the relation between the two endings is very much as in Hebrew.
- ↑ In 1 S 20 also, where the Masora (see Baer on Jos 5) for some unknown reason requires ממחרָת, read with ed. Mant., Jablonski, Opitius, and Ginsburg, ממחרַת.
- ↑ In this ending the ה h can only be considered consonantal in the sense that the ת was originally aspirated, and afterwards ‘the mute ת was dropped before h, just as the old Persian mithra became in modern Persian mihrʾ; so Socin, who also points to the Arabic pausal form in ah, and observes that among some of the modern Beduin an h is still heard as a fem. ending, cf. Socin, Diwan aus Centralarabien, iii. 98, ed. by H. Stumme, Lpz. 1901. In Hebrew this consonantal termination was entirely abandoned, at any rate in later times.
