I posted this initially on Facebook (two weeks ago), but am parking it here so that I can readily find it. I've posted here similarly in the past, but this is more concise.
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This week's thought on the parsha (Chayei Sarah):
Nekudot didn't originally exist for Biblical Hebrew. And the letters aleph, heh, vav, yud originally only functioned to denote consonants. Eventually, those letters (aleph, heh, vav, yud) were used as "imot hakriah", to indicate a vowel sound. So, for instance, a heh at the end of the word to indicate a kamatz, or a yud in the middle or end of a word to indicate a chirik or a tzeirei. But this didn't always happen.
That explains, for instance, why in Chayei Sarah, Bereishit 24, Rivkah is referred to as הַנַּעֲרָ. We shouldn't wonder whether she was cisgender. It is just the archaic, or original, way of writing her name.
So too in the beginning of Chayei Sarah, in Bereishit 23. To indicate a vowel at the end of a word, writers were not always consistent, because the spelling had not yet regularized. (So for instance, when Avraham pitched his tent - ohalo, it has a krei uksiv by being spelled with a final heh rather than a vav.)
So you have
לֵאמֹר לוֹ
שְׁמָעֵנוּ אֲדֹנִי
and
לֵאמֹר
לֹא-אֲדֹנִי שְׁמָעֵנִי
לֵאמֹר לוֹ
שְׁמָעֵנוּ אֲדֹנִי
and
לֵאמֹר
לֹא-אֲדֹנִי שְׁמָעֵנִי
and so on. Consider the possibility of reading every one of these, with a vav shuruk, or vav cholam, or cholam aleph, as the word "loo" (as in e.g. pasuk 13,
לוּ, שְׁמָעֵנִי
). And rewrite the pasuk divisions, so that no pasuk ends with a leimor, or with a leimor lo, but each reads leimor lu adoni shemaeini. See how the narrative restructures, and some questions are resolved. (Such as what Ephron is really refusing in pasuk 11.)
לוּ, שְׁמָעֵנִי
). And rewrite the pasuk divisions, so that no pasuk ends with a leimor, or with a leimor lo, but each reads leimor lu adoni shemaeini. See how the narrative restructures, and some questions are resolved. (Such as what Ephron is really refusing in pasuk 11.)
