2A Extraordinary Points—Puncta extraordinaria

In 15 passages in M certain words are stigmatized or dotted. Some Hebrew manuscripts exhibit vertical or horizontal strokes instead of dots, or puncta. The 15 places where the extraordinary points occur are: Ge 16:5; 18:9; 19:33; 33:4; 37:12; Nu 3:39; 9:10; 21:30; 29:15; De 29:29; 2Sa 19:19; Ps 27:13; Isa 44:9; Eze 41:20; 46:22. See our footnotes for a discussion of these passages.

The exact meaning of the dots is disputed. Some consider them to be marks of erasure. Others think the dots indicate that in some collated manuscripts the words thus stigmatized were missing, so that the reading is doubtful. Still others think the dots are simply a device to aid the reader to remember some explanation that the ancient Hebrews had connected with these words. Also, there are those who argue that the dots were intended to guard against the omission by copyists of elements in the Hebrew text which, at first glance or after comparison with parallel Scripture passages, seemed to be superfluous.

Concerning the extraordinary points, Gins.^Int, pp. 320, 321, says: “It will thus be seen that the points were regarded by the ancient authorities as marking the letters and words in question as spurious and that the Prophet Elias [Elijah], who is to solve all doubts and difficulties, will give his decision on them when he appears. The practice of using dots to stigmatize words as spurious was not restricted to those days. Later scribes continued the example of the ancient Sopherim, as may be seen by the student of Hebrew MSS.”