(We-)hinnēh and hēn in the Biblical Manuscripts of the Dead Sea as Compared to the Masoretic Text

Hitherto discussions on (we)hinnēh and hēn are almost exclusively based on the Masoretic Text (henceforth MT). This paper will present the syntactic use of (we-)hinnēh and hēn in the biblical manuscripts of the Dead Sea (henceforth BiblManDS), using insights from discourse analysis. Both similarities and differences between the BiblManDS and the MT will be investigated, such as correspondences with the MT (e.g. Ex 9:7), occurrences of wehinnēh in the BiblManDS as compared to hinnēh in the MT (e.g., Ex 7:15), hinnēh in the BiblManDS instead of hēn in the MT (e.g., Deut 5:24, Isa 49:21), hinnēh in the BiblManDS rather than a subject pronoun in the MT (e.g., Ex 18:6), the adding of hinnēh in the BiblManDS as compared to the absence of any presentatives in the MT (e.g., Song of Sol. 2:13). As regards the Great Isaiah Scroll (henceforth 1QIsaa), the most prominent feature is the preference to hinnēh as compared to hēn in the MT to convey personal and temporal deixis, deontic and epistemic modality along with evidentiality. Nevertheless, 1QIsaa shows the countertrend phenomenon of the increasing use of both hinnēh and hēn as compared to the remaining scrolls.

In conclusion, even though the decreasing uses of hinnēh and hēn do not affect all the manuscripts, they can be regarded as general phenomena in the BiblManDS as compared to the MT.