10. רענ versus הרענ with Feminine Singular Referent

The chapter focuses on the peculiarity of the Hebrew of the Tiberian Torah, the written component of which generally refers to both ‘young male’ and ‘young female’ by means of the form נער. The corresponding reading component, by contrast, distinguishes masculine נַעַר and feminine נַעֲרָה, like the combined Tiberian written-reading tradition of the rest of the Bible and ancient Hebrew sources more generally. The consonant-vocalic dissonance sets the CBH of the Masoretic Torah apart from that of the Prophets and Writings.

The potential explanations for this phenomenon centre around whether the differences in the Tiberian Torah are primarily orthographic or linguistic. An orthographic explanation posits that the spelling reflects anomalous archaic final-defective spelling conventions, with the Masoretic Torah retaining older forms. Conversely, a linguistic interpretation suggests that the written form נער functioned as an epicene term in ancient Hebrew, initially lacking distinct gender markers, but later developing into the more differentiated forms seen elsewhere. Ultimately, the chapter proposes that both ancient linguistic features and later developments influenced the Tiberian texts, indicating that the distinction between the written forms in the Torah and those in the Prophets and Writings may represent a combination of historical language preservation and subsequent standardisation practices during the Second Temple Period.