The Meaning(lessness) of qubbâ and the Original Text of Numbers 25:8

Abstract

The hapax legomenon קֻבָּה, which seems to appear out of context in the account of Phinehas killing an Israelite man and a Midianite woman in Num 25:8, has long puzzled commentators, scholars, and translators. This paper presents a new, text-critical explanation, suggesting that the original text read ויבא אחר איש ישראל וידקר את שניהם את איש ישראל אל הקבה ואת האשה אל קבתה, not including קֻבָּה at all: Phinehas pierced the man אֶל הַקֵּבָה, “through the belly,” and the woman אֶל קֳבָתָהּ, “through her belly.” The corruption occurred when the words אל הקבה were moved six words back in the text due to homoioteleuton and a partially successful correction. This unintentionally created the extant sentence ויבא אחר איש ישראל אל הקבה, in which קבה must denote a location, not an organ. Rather than קֵבָה, it was therefore read as קֻבָּה.