Unit Delimitation as a Guide to Interpretation: A Status Quaestionis

This paper deals with the importance of delimitation markings in the text
of the Bible. From antiquity on empty spaces were used by scribes as a
guiding principle to the interpretation of texts. Spaces dividing sections
and even marking colometry already appeared on ancient clay tablets but
they also appear to be present in the ancient Isaiah scroll of Qumran,
and lots of those spaces appeared to coincide with setumot and petuh. ot
as well as with masoretic accents in later medieval Hebrew manuscripts
and with the text divisions and colometry in ancient translations of the
Hebrew Bible. Apparently not only the consonantal text was important to
later copyists, but also the text division they found in their master text.
Several examples are presented to show how this text division may guide
(or misguide) the reader in understanding texts.