The Masoretic Notes in Three commentaries attributed to Rashi

Using the mikraot Gedolot ‘Haketer’ version of Rashi’s commentary on three Biblical passages (Deuteronomy 33:23, Isaiah 14:11 and Ezekiel 17:9) the author reviews the textual version of the commentaries’ transmission from medieval manuscripts to print editions. Addressing their meaning and adducing the masoretic notes that the meyuas may have used in making additions, the author demonstrates that these later additions have generated erroneous attributions to Rashi’s original commentaries. In the first two cases, the commentator employs the Masorah note as an interpretive tool. Firstly, he cites the Masorah Magna to support his claim that this unusual form of השָֽׁרָיְ (deut 33:23) is indeed in the imperative. Secondly, the commentator adduces from a masoretic note that the word ךי֑לֶבָנְ (Isa 14:11), which occurs twice in the Bible in this form has two meanings. In the third case, the Masorah note had no interpretive agenda; it merely pointed out that all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet appear in Ezekiel 17:9.

The purpose of the Masorah is to accurately preserve the Biblical text and its wording.Primarily interested in exceptional and rare phenomena, the Masorah records the number of such occurrences, after counting and summarizing them.Although the Masorah notes relate to textual issues, Rashi ascribes interpretive significance to them and utilizes them in his commentaries on the Hebrew Bible 1 in twenty cases.
2 In this study, I will examine three instances in which the Masorah was cited in Rashi's commentary, but according to mikraot Gedolot 'Haketer' (hereinafter: mGH) 3 this attribution to Rashi is incorrect.
The popularity of Rashi's commentary on the Bible and its widespread dissemination resulted in many errors being introduced into both the manuscript and print versions.In addition to the copyists and printers' errors, Rashi's commentary is unique both in that Rashi himself revised his commentary and in that others added segments which Rashi definitely did not write.The latter phenomenon already commenced with Rashi's devoted disciples, who added explanations on Rashi's comments or introduced interpretations not mentioned by him.Other additions were later incorporated into the manuscripts by those studying the commentary.During the processes of copying and editing the commentary, these additions made their way into the body of the commentary.

4
I have chosen to privilege the mGH edition because it cites the most accurate version of Rashi's commentary which "is dozens of times more qualitative than those [versions] found in the [other] extant editions that are replete with thousands of errors and corruptions." 5 However it should be noted that the editorial policy of the mGH is to include a large selection of additions, which are placed in square brackets so as to distinguish them from Rashi's actual commentary.
Be that as it may, in each one of the three cases, I will begin by commenting on the version of the additions -the text attributed to Rashi (hereinafter: meyuas)-that my investigation of the manuscript and printed versions of the commentary led me to.
6 Then I will examine the interpretation offered by the meyuas attempting to discover how it differs from those offered by the Targumim and other biblical commentators.Finally, I will attempt to present the Masorah note (or one similar to it) that the commentary attributed to Rashi cites.

8
Having reviewed the manuscripts evidence, I also came to the conclusion that this interpretation should not be ascribed to Rashi.The entire passage is absent in MS Parma De Rossi 181 which is known for its accuracy, as it was used as the basis for the mGH's version of Rashi's commentary on Deuteronomy.The entire passage is found nowhere in the cohort of high quality manuscripts I examined, including, Vienna 23 and 24, Paris 48/49, and Cincinnati 51. 9 While I did not review a vast number of manuscripts, the cohort I studied comprise those consulted in establishing the text of Rashi's Pentateuchal commentary in the mGH.
One might speculate that the absence of this addition in MSS Vienna 23 and 24, which include additions to Rashi's commentary and are routinely understood to stem from R. Joseph Kara's manuscripts, indicates that the provenance of this addition is not Rashi's immediate circle.
This passage is cited in the version of Rashi's commentary found in MS Vatican 94 and MS Paris 155.However, it is difficult to establish the source of the addition to those manuscripts: Was it introduced by those learning or by those copying Rashi's commentary in the Middle Ages?These manuscripts of Rashi's commentary contain minute differences, 10 which indicates that they probably do not stem from one single source.
The addition is also found in several print editions, for instance, in the first printed edition of Rashi's commentary 11 and in mikraot Gedolot Venice. 12We may assume that the basis for this addition in the print versions was either one of the aforementioned manuscripts or another one like them.
This passage is cited in several critical editions, including Berliner's first edition, published in 1905.
13 But Berliner, in his new edition, published in 1970, cited this interpretation in square brackets and noted that he did so to denote "the new version, which the majority attest to as the best and primary one." 14 Berliner in a list of "names of books […] cited in Rashi's commentary on the Pentateuch" that he compiled, includes the "Masorah Magna: Deuteronomy 33:23" (p.428).Likewise, Chavel included this interpretation in his critical edition, and in his introduction, where he listed "the books that Rashi had seen and used," the final item listed was the Masorah Magna, and our verse was brought as an example.
As for the commentary's contents, as is Rashi's wont, the meyuas immediately commences with the solution -‫ה"‬ ָ ‫ֽׁש‬ ֽ ֽ ֽ ָֽ ‫ר‬ ‫"יְ‬ -"[in the] imperative form" -and fails to explicate the difficulty posed by the biblical verse.In this case, the complication arises from determining the tense adopted by the word ‫ה"‬ ָ ‫ֽׁש‬ ָ ‫ר‬ ‫,"יְ‬ 16 a task made difficult by the fact that when the word is pronounced with a penultimate stress, this may be indicative of the past tense, like ‫ה"‬ ָ ‫֥ר‬ ָ ‫מ‬ ְ ‫"ׁש‬ (amos 1:11), but given the context of the verse, this cannot be the case, since the land has yet to be inherited.
The commentators may have also entertained the possibility that ‫ה"‬ ָ ‫ֽׁש‬ ֽ ֽ ֽ ָ ‫ר‬ ‫"יְ‬ denotes the future, a promise of the inheritance to come: thus, in the early Targumim including the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and Targum Onkelos, and in modern translations, including the NIV, "he will inherit southward to the lake," and the BBE, "the sea and its fishes will be his." 21 r.Saadiah Gaon, 22 craigie, 23 and Steinberg, in his dictionary, 24 also adopt this approach.
The meyuas explained that ‫ה"‬ ָ ‫ֽׁש‬ ֽ ֽ ֽ ָ ‫ר‬ ‫"יְ‬ is in the imperative form, so did Luzzatto, 25 and several biblical lexicons, including Gesenius 26 and the bdb. 27Additionally, over ten English Bible translations render the verse in a similar manner; JPS, for instance, chose "possess thou the sea and the south." We must not forget that grammatical matters which are considered straight forward today were not so in the eras of Rashi and of the author of the commentary attributed to Rashi; therefore, he provided an explanation for his grammatical insight, adducing proof from the location of the stress.The imperative form always takes an ultimate stress ‫ירשו(‬ ‫;)ירשי,‬ however, in this instance, the stress is penultimate because in a normal, second person imperative, the stress falls on the ayin ha-poal (second radical), as in ‫שמע‬ ‫לקח,‬ ‫ידע,‬ ‫ירש,‬ and the stress remains in the same place even when the letter ‫ה‬ is appended to the imperative: ‫לקחה‬ ‫סלחה,‬ ‫ידעה,‬ ‫.שמעה,‬ As for the examples adduced by the commentary attributed to Rashi, four verbs were included in each group; however, ‫ירש‬ was not included in the second group and ‫סלחה‬ was omitted from the first.Even though the other three verbs are mentioned in both groups, the parallel between the two groups is lost because the verbs are arranged in different orders.Furthermore, while two of these verbs do appear in the Bible in the imperative form with a penultimate stress, " ֙ ‫ה‬ ‫עָ‬ ֨ ָ ‫מ‬ ְ ‫"ׁש‬ and ‫ה"‬ ָ ‫֔ח‬ ָ ‫ל‬ ְ ‫"ס‬ (dan 9:19), the other two examples, ‫ידעה‬ and ‫,לקחה‬ only appear in the past tense: the former with a penult stress -‫ה"‬ ָ ‫ע‬ ‫֥דְ‬ ָ ‫ל-י‬ ַ ‫"וּב‬ (Prov 9:13), and the latter joined to the next word with a hyphen -‫ֽזּאת"‬ ‫ה-‬ ָ ‫ח‬ ֳ ‫ק‬ ֻֽ ‫"ל‬ (Gen 2:23).
At the end of this passage, the meyuas brought the Masorah Magna to support his claim that this unusual form of ‫ירשה‬ is indeed in the imperative.The word ‫ירשה‬ is including in the list ‫דטעמיהון‬ ‫ציווי‬ ‫לשון‬ ‫ביתא‬ ‫"אלפא‬ ‫,מלעיל"‬ that is to say an alphabetical list of words with imperative forms and penult stresses.
Which particular Masorah note (or one similar to it) did the commentator whose work is attributed to Rashi base his commentary on?He declared that the Masorah note is to be found in the Masorah Magna, that is currently known as Olah ve-Olah.Indeed, Ehrentreu 28 has already designated a particular list in Olah ve-Olah 29 as the source for this note in ‫וסימני׳":‪Rashi‬‬ ‫ולית‬ ‫לעיל‬ ‫בטעמ׳‬ ‫וחד‬ ‫חד‬ ‫מן‬ ‫,"א"ב‬ meaning an alphabetical list of unique words with penult stresses and their identifying quotes are… However, one could argue that the heading in Olah ve-Olah, as well as the title of other lists, such as that in Frensdorff 30 ‫חד‬ ‫חד‬ ‫מן‬ ‫"א"ב‬ ‫תיבותא"‬ ‫בסוף‬ ‫ה׳‬ ‫משמשין‬ ‫לפניה‬ ‫וקמץ‬ ‫,לעיל‬ [an alphabetical list of unique words with penult stresses and at the end of the verse occurs a kame following by a heh.] differ from the version cited by the meyuas.indeed, i have not found any Masorah note identical to that cited in the commentary attributed to Rashi, and it seems that the commentator reworked the original heading, either based on the text of a Masorah note in his possession or based on a note he remembered having once seen; in either case, he added the interpretive component of "[in the] imperative form" to the Masorah note to support his reading of the word ‫ה"‬ ָ ‫ֽׁש‬ ָ ‫ר‬ ‫."יְ‬ Whether or not the Masorah list can provide proof that ‫ה"‬ ָ ‫ֽׁש‬ ָ ‫ר‬ ‫"יְ‬ occurs in the imperative form is a question that arises not only from the version of the heading found in the commentary attributed to Rashi but also from a careful inspection of the list's components. 31It seems that A. Berliner's comment (Raši al ha-Torah) that "the words 'in imperative form' are missing from the Masorah" (p.421, n. 20) was not a result of his having checked the list, but rather a result of his having seen a version of the Masorah note found in, for instance, the mikraot Gedolot, Am Olam (Jerusalem 1961) [hereinafter: commentators address "his" commentary on this verse; 32 however, most entirely ignore the matter of the Masorah.

33
To sum up, the meyuas may have suggested that ‫ה"‬ ָ ‫ֽׁש‬ ‫רָ‬ ‫"יְ‬ is in the imperative tense in order to reject another possible interpretation.The commentator neither chose his examples carefully nor took care to cite them in their proper order.So while the meyuas did adduce a Masorah note to support his lone interpretation, he misused and misrepresented the Masorah, for I have not managed to find even one Masorah note that contains the unit ‫צווי‬ ‫לשון‬ 'imperative form' in its heading.Furthermore, even those notes that contain similar lists are comprised of examples not in the imperative, except for ‫ה"‬ ָ ‫ֽׁש‬ ָ ‫ר‬ ‫,"יְ‬ the subject of our discussion. 2 Rashi comments ‫לפניך‬ ‫מזמרים‬ ‫שהיו‬ ‫וכנורות‬ ‫נבלים‬ -‫נבליך‬ ‫המיית‬ 'The harps and lyres that used to play before you'.The meyuas in his addition to Rashi's commentary offers: mKG Am Olam], (Final Masorah, maareet Ot Heh, p. 15), also cited in FRENSDORFF, The massorah magna. 32  3 except for BERLINER, Raši al ha-Torah and S. P. gELBARD'S Li-Fešuto šel Raši (Jerusalem 1980), p. 275, n. 1, who do mention the Masorah Magna, but refer to it as "the detailed lists of the Masoretes, which were inscribed in the margins of the folio in the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible," even though the term 'Masorah Magna' used by the commentary attributed to Rashi designates the list in Olah ve-Olah or another similar list found in the Final Masorah of the mikra'ot Gedolot.CHAVEL, Rashi's Commentary on the Pentateuch 2 , also errs in explaining that the term 'Masorah Magna' in Rashi refers to a work that "comments on and supplements the Masorah Parva" (p.x, n. 39).

‫ומדומה‬ ‫שבחיילותיך.‬ ‫נבלה‬ ‫עושי‬ ‫נבל,‬ ‫בני‬ ‫המית‬ ‫נבליך:‬ ‫המית‬ ‫לפתור‬ ‫ויש‬ ‫באל"ף‬ ‫כג)‬ ‫ה,‬ ‫(עמ׳‬ ‫נבליך׳‬ ‫׳זמרת‬ ‫ואת‬ ‫זה‬ ‫את‬ ‫חיבר‬ ‫הגדולה‬ ‫שבמסורת‬ ‫אני,‬
. 34 ‫לשונות‬ ‫שתי‬ ‫של‬ ‫בי"ת‬ 'and ‫נבליך‬ ‫המית‬should be interpreted 'the strains of the scoundrels, those who do evil among your soldiers.'And it probably seems to me that the Masorah Magna joined this and ‫נבליך׳‬ ‫׳זמרת‬ (Amos 5:23) in an alphabetical [list] of [two equal words] with two meanings'.This version of these interpretations was established by the author of the mikraot Gedolot 'Haketer'.A cursory reading of Rashi's interpretation quickly reveals that the sub verbum ‫"המיית"‬ differs from our version of the biblical text.Indeed, while this version is found in the manuscripts, the printed editions (including, MKG Venice, MKG Warsaw and its successors -all the popular versions of the Mikraot Gedolot [Pardess and Am Olam]) 35 and even Maarsen's edition, which is considered a critical one, 36 record the biblical text as ‫,"המית"‬ in light of the printers' decision to emend every version found in manuscript form so that it would conform with the masoretic text. 37The meyuas in his addition to Rashi's commentary records the sub verbum ‫נבליך"‬ ‫"המית‬ as our version of the biblical text.
In the print editions there is no difference between Rashi's commentary and the commentary attributed to Rashi, neither in mKG Venice nor in mKG Warsaw and its successors. 37On this phenomenon of emending divergent biblical versions so that they comply with the accepted masoretic text, see M. COHEN, "Introduction," mGH -Genesis, vol.ii (Ramat Gan 1999), 7-8: "Even the scientific editors of the commentary by Rashi, such as Berliner and Maarsen [...] also adapted the variant Biblical versions to the MT [...] and also attempted to emend the thousands of variants of plene and deficient spelling that are dispersed throughout the commentary," p. 7; IDEM, mGH -Kings (ramat Gan 1995), p. 8. 38 In the Maarsen edition the commentary attributed to Rashi is brought in a footnote (p.42, note on l. 1).Rosenberg also remarked (in a footnote) that in certain manuscripts the commentary attributed to Rashi does not appear.has a different meaning.Since the verse in Amos 5:23 ‫המון"‬ ‫מעלי‬ ‫הסר‬ ‫אשמע‬ ‫לא‬ ‫נבליך‬ ‫וזמרת‬ ‫"שריך‬ clearly refers to a musical instrument, it is reasonable to interpret the other occurrence to mean 'scoundrels' ‫נבל)‬ ‫.(בני‬This interpretation is bolstered by the textual version found in the Isaiah Scroll discovered in Qumran cave 1: ‫.נבלתך‬ 53 tur-Sinai, 54 blenkinsopp, 55 and (in a similar vein) Watts 56 adopt this interpretation.
Luzzatto cited Rashi's interpretation at the beginning of his commentary.However, he did add: "and it would be possible to interpret [this]  with the connotation of ‫ל‬ ָ ‫ַב‬ ‫נ‬ ['a scoundrel']," and he cited the interpretation attributed to Rashi as Rashi's and produced the proof text from the Masoretes.This notwithstanding, he was reluctant to accept this interpretation, stating that "my mind has not warmed to his interpretation."57 Which Masorah note (or one similar to it) was the meyuas citing?The following title found in both editions of Olah ve-Olah 58 is similar in meaning to the note adduced by the commentator: ‫ותרויהון‬ ‫ב׳‬ ‫ב׳‬ ‫מן‬ ‫"א"ב‬ ‫וסימ׳".‬‫לישנין‬ ‫.ותרין‬ an alphabetical [list] of two unique homonyms of two meanings and their identifying quotes.This alphabetical list contains ‫נבליך‬ ‫,המית‬ as the verse there (Dan 3:5) recounts ‫וגו׳‬ ‫קרנא‬ ‫קל‬ ‫תשמעון‬ ‫די‬ ‫בעידנא‬ , and they said that now his statue is also despised and the sounds of music played during its worship will cease…" And in a similar vein, Y. kHULI, Yalkut meam Loez, completed by SH.YERUSHALMI (Jerusalem 1995): "[…] he mentioned ‫,נבל‬ to allude to the fact that ‫נבל‬ connotes ‫ניוול‬ ('denigration'), and since he uses coarse speech, speaking high and mightily even about the Creator, he will reach the level where instead of hearing the strains of harps ‫הנבלים)‬ ‫,(המית‬ he will hear the sounds of worms and maggots" (Isa, p. 171).
The editor attributes this interpretation to anonymous commentators, without mentioning his sources.For the midrash that is foundational to this notion of a semantic connection between ‫נבליך‬ and ‫,מנוול‬ see R. Luzzatto, in commenting on this verse, also notes that "in Rashi, [in] a manuscript on the Prophets in my possession the matter of the alphabet does not appear." 63In the printed editions (MKG Venice, MKG Warsaw) this passage is attributed to Rashi.
usually we can only assert that Rashi himself did not write an addition if it is not found in any of the manuscripts containing Rashi's commentary.64   However, in our case, even though we only checked a few manuscripts we can make such a confident assertion because the ones we checked are known for their accuracy, as they were used as the basis for the mGH's version of Rashi's commentary on Ezekiel.Furthermore, Professor Jordan S. Penkower, who checked all sixty-one manuscripts, declared that various additions found in manuscript were not incorporated into the print versions and that approximately another two hundred additions not found in the manuscript were incorporated into the print versions of Ezekiel 1-39. 65We will follow Penkower's suggestion that the additions were introduced by a single individual in the Middle Ages who made comments in the margins of a manuscript in his possession for his own personal use.
This led me to ponder what the source for this addition is, given that it appears in MKG Venice, but is not found in the manuscript versions.Apparently this manuscript with its additions did not influence the version in the other manuscripts, but it did wind up in the possession of Jacob ben Hayyim, the editor of MKG Venice, who used it in preparing his edition, without noticing that additions had been incorporated into the commentary.

66
An examination of the contents of the addition -"all the letters of the alphabet may be found in this biblical verse, and I am surprised that this is not enumerated in the Masorah"-reveals that the passage has nothing to do with the interpretation of the verse. 67It merely testifies to the com-mentator's interest in the Masorah and to his having been familiar with a Masorah list that enumerated verses containing the entire alphabet, but did not include our own.He noticed that our verse should have been included.
The meyuas may have referred to a Masorah note from the Masorah Magna similar to that printed in MKG Venice and in MKG Warsaw on ezekiel 38:12.
68 In this list the item ‫הקדים"‬ ‫רוח‬ ‫כגעת‬ ‫"הלא‬ alludes to ezek 17:10; however, this verse does not contain all the letters in the Hebrew alphabet.A comparison of this list with other ones suggests that an error transpired.For instance, in the Final Masorah in MS L and, likewise, in Ginsburg's masoretic compilation, 69 instead of alluding to Ezek 17:10, the phrase -‫דתצלח"‬ ‫אמר‬ ‫כה‬ ‫"אמר.‬-alludes to the previous verse, Ezek 17:9, which does contain the entire Hebrew alphabet. 70The source of this error Y. K. Reinitz (Bne Brak 1971): "This is what God has commanded.The [entire] alphabet appears in this verse in order to teach us that anyone who keeps the Torah, will receive his livelihood from the Holy One, blessed be He, without having to work hard, like those who consumed the manna" (Exod 16:16). 68The Masorah Parva notes, which are juxtaposed to the biblical text, only comment on a small portion of the verses; thus, for instance, in The Aleppo Codex -Provided with masoretic Notes and Pointed by Aaron ben Asher, edited with a Prolegomenon by M. may reside in the proximity of the two verses (although, alternatively, one could argue that the meyuas only discovered the additional verse due to their proximity) or in the similarity between words found in the first half of both verses -‫הלוא"‬ ‫"התצלח‬ (v.9), ‫הלוא"‬ ‫"תצלח‬ (v.10) -and in the exact same words found in their second halves -‫תיבש"‬ ‫."צמחה‬ that "thousands of printers errors had been eliminated" from Jacob ben Hayyim's notes, he still copied the flawed list (p.143).
71 The (siman) identifying quote ‫מהחצפא"‬ ‫"דתא‬ found in mKG Venice's list is also problematic.it seems to refer to dan 2:15: ‫מהחצפה"‬ ‫דתא‬ ‫;"על-מה‬ however, this verse does not contain all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and I did not find this identifying quote in any other list.The list in mKG Venice is probably a corruption of the identifying quote ‫מחצפה"‬ ‫מלכא‬ ‫"מלת‬ found in several other lists, including the Final Masorah in mS L, which alludes to Dan 3:22.

9 7 I
would like to thank Dr. Yosef Peretz for providing me with the best version of Rashi's commentary on the word ‫ירשה‬ that will eventually be published in the MGHdeuteronomy. 8I translated Rashi's commentary and compared this translation with M. ROSENBAUM and a. M. SILBERMANN et al. (eds.),Pentateuch… and Rashi's Commentary Translated into English -Deuteronomy [heb.](Jerusalem 1973); A. J. ROSENBERg, A New English Translation of Text, Rashi and Commentary (New-York 1988).All other translations in this article are entirely my own, unless otherwise indicated.