Cairo Genizah : Palimpsest; Bible; piyyuṭ

Yannai, Aquila

Cairo Genizah

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Palimpsest with Aquila’s Greek translation of II Kings 23:11–27 (dating to the 6th century), overwritten with piyyuṭim of the liturgical poet Yannai. The upper script may be 9th–11th century CE. The Greek text uses paleo-Hebrew characters for the tetragrammaton. The pronunciation of this word was evidently kurios, ‘lord’ (like Hebrew adonay), for when the scribe ran out of room to write the tetragrammaton at the end of 2 Kings 23:24 (folio 2b, col. a, line 15), he simply wrote κυ, as an abbreviation of κύριος. The poems of Yannai contain Qerovot poems on four sedarim in Leviticus (13:29; 14:1; 21:1; 22:13), which can be joined with other leaves in the Genizah to make a complete quire.</p>