Posted by Shlomoh on January 17, 1998 at 22:55:25:
The MASSORAH Edited by Shlomoh (Solomon Yedidiyah Tulbure)
All the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, (the SACRED TESXTS), contain on every page, besides the Tex (which is arranged in two or more columns), a varying number of lines of smaller writing, distributed between the upper and lower margins. This smaller writing is called Massorah Magna or Great Massorah, while that in the side margins and between the columns is called the Massorah Parva or Small Masssorah.
The word Massorah is from the root masar, to deliver something into the hand of another, so as to commit it to his trust. Hence the name given to the small writing referred to, because it contains information necessary to those into whose trust the Sacred Text was committed, so that they might transcribe it, and hand it down correctly. The Txt itself had been fixed before the Massorites were put in charge of it. This had been the work of the Sopherim (from saphar/shaphar, to count or number). Their work under Ezra and Nehemiah, was to set the Text in order after the return from Babylon; and we read about this in Neh. 8:8 (Ezra 7:6,177). The men of The men of "the Great Synagogue" completed the work. This work lasted about 110 years, from Nehemiah to Simon the first, 410-300 B.C.
The Sopherim were the authorised revisers of the Sacred text; and their work being completed, the Massorites were the authorized custodians of it. Their work was to preserve it. The Massorah is called "A Fence to the Scriptures," because it locked all words and letters in their places. It does not contain notes or comments as such, but facts and phenomena. It records the amount of times the several letters occur in the various books of the Bible; the number of words, and the middle word; the number of verses and the middle verse; the number of expressions and combinations of words. All this, not from a perverted ingenuity, but for the set purpose of safeguarding the Sacred Text, and preventing the loss or misplacement of a single letter or word.
This Massorah is not contained in the margins of any one MS. No ManuScript contains the whole, or even in part. It is spread over many MSS., and Dr. C.D. Ginsburg has been the first and only scholar who has set himself to collect and collate the whole, copying it from every available MS. In the libraries of many countries. He has published it in three large folio volumes, and only a small number of copies have been printed. These are obtainable only by the original subscribers.
When the Hebrew text was printed, only the large type in the columns was regarded, and the small type of the Massorah was left, unheeded in the MSS. From which the text was taken.
When translators came to the printed Hebrew Text, they were necessarily destitute of the information contained in the Massorah; so that the Revisers as well as the translators of the Authorised Version carried out their work without any idea of the treasures contained in the Massorah ; and therefore , without giving a hint of it to their readers.
A vast number of the Massoretic notes concern only the orthography and matters that pertain to the Concordance. But many of those affect the sense, or throw any additional light on the Sacred Text.
For further information on the Massorah see Dr. Ginsburg’s ‘Introduction to the Hebrew Bible’ of which only a limited eddition was printed.
Shalom Aleichem!