Writing Biblical Hebrew

Although the purpose of this blog is to discuss aspects of composing in biblical Hebrew that you probably won't find in grammar books, this post is a little exception because this is a rule that's easy to miss when writing, especially when it comes to the interrogative ה for yes-no questions.  The rule: you cannot have two shewa vowels together at the beginning of a word.   You may have two shewas together in the middle of a word ( אִשְׁתְּךָ ), and occasionally the end of a word ( וַיֵּבְךְּ, הָלַכְתְּ ), but not the beginning. This rule is the reason we see changes like the following, to break up the initial cluster of shewas and/or hatef  (half) vowels:  vav conj. before shewa becomes וּ   וְ + לְאַבְרָם = וְלְאַבְרָם ←  וּ לְאַבְרָם      vav conj. before yod+shewa becomes וִ   וְ + יְהוּדָה = וְיְהוּדָה ←  וִ יהוּדָה vav conjunction & prepositions ב,כ,ל  before hatef vowel copy following vowel  וְ + אֲנִי = וְאֲנִי ←  וַ אֲנִי בְּ + אֱמֶת = בְּאֱמֶת ←  בֶּ אֱמֶת