What is up with מָה?

1 word, 2 pronunciations, 3 vowel pointing variations... what is up with מָה?

In the biblical text, we have a number of different spellings of this basic question word 'what': מֶה, מָה, מַה. This is definitely not the final word on the subject, and it doesn't account for all the exceptions found in the text, but here are the working guidelines I use to decide which form to use when composing original text in Biblical Hebrew.

מֶה 

The form מֶה comes before words that start with ע or ח*. The most common is in questions like "what have you done?" or "what did the man do?" that use the verb עָשָׂה 'to do' in qatal forms.

מֶה עָשִׂיתָ (Gen 4:10) what have you done?

מֶה עֲכַרְתָּנוּ (Josh. 7:25) why have you brought trouble on us?

מֶה עַבְדְּךָ (2 Sam. 9:8) what is your servant?

מֶה חָטָאתִי (1 Kings 18:9) how have I sinned?

אֵדְעָה מֶה־חָדֵל אָנִי (Ps.39:4) let me know how fleeting I am

We also find מֶה before the word הָיָה:

לֹא יָדַעְנוּ מֶה־הָיָה לוֹ (Ex. 32:1) we do not know what has become of him.

מָה 

מָה appears before words beginning with א and ה and ר.

מָה־אֵלֶּה (Zec.4:4) what are these?

מָה אַתֶּם עֹשִׂים (Judg.18:18) what are you doing?

מָה־אָמַר לְךָ אֱלִישָׁע (2 Ki.8:14) What did Elisha say to you?

אֶרְאֶה מָה אַחֲרִיתָם (Deut.32:20) I will see what their end (will be)

מָה־הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה עָשִׂיתָ לָּנוּ (Judg.8:1) what is this thing you have done to us?

מָה רָאִית (1 Sam.28:13) what do you see?

(Note that it is pointed מָה before the tetragrammaton, since the Masoretes pronounced this אֲדֹנָי). 

מָה יהוה אֱלֹהֶיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ (Deut.10:12) what does YHWH your God ask of you?

(Both מֶה and מָה are occasionally connected to the following verb with a maqqef, but more frequently appear without it, so I usually do not use a maqqef with them except in the case of מָה־אֵלֶּה)

מַה־

מַה־ appears before non-guttural letters. It almost always occurs with a maqqef linking it to the following word, and usually inserts a dagesh in the first letter of the following word (similar to the definite article's dagesh).

מַה־זֶּה בְיָדֶךָ (Ex.4:2) what is that in your hand?

מַה־זֹּאת עֲשִׂיתֶם (Judg.2:2) what is this you have done?

מַה־יֵּשׁ תַּחַת־יָדְךָ (1 Sam.21:4) what do you have on hand?

מַה־יָּדַעְתָּ (Job 15:9) what do you know?

מַה־נַּעֲשֶׂה (1 Sam.6:2) what shall we do?

מַה־לְּךָ what is the matter with you? what do you want?


Below is a flowchart to summarize. 

(I apologize for the poor image quality: Blogger image compression is THE WORST)

* Since there are relatively few occurrences of מָה before ח in the text and they're not consistent, it's hard to decide on a good rule about this, so this just represents my current rule of thumb. The distance of the word מה from the phrasal accent may also trigger the form מֶה. See Genesius's Hebrew Grammar §37 for more details and exceptions to these guidelines.

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