Qere and Ketiv - The Masoretic Tradition

The Masoretic Tradition

Torah scrolls for use in public reading in synagogues contain only the Hebrew language consonantal text, handed down by tradition (with only a very limited and ambiguous indication of vowels by means of matres lectionis). However, in the Masoretic codices of the 9th–10th centuries, and most subsequent manuscripts and published editions of the Tanakh intended for personal study, the pure consonantal text is annotated with vowel points, cantillation marks and other diacritic symbols used by the Masoretes to indicate how it should be read and chanted, besides marginal notes serving various functions.

Though the basic consonantal text written in the Hebrew alphabet was never altered, sometimes the Masoretes noted a different reading of a word than that found in the pre-Masoretic consonantal text. The Masoretic scribes used qere/ketiv to show, without changing the received consonantal text, that in their tradition a different reading of the text is to be used. That Masoretic reading or pronunciation is known as the Qere (Aramaic קרי "to be read"), while the pre-Masoretic consonantal spelling is known as the Ketiv (Aramaic כתיב "(what is) written").

In such Masoretic texts, the vowel diacritics of the qere (the Masoretic reading) would be placed in the main text, added around the consonantal letters of the ketiv (the written variant to be substituted – even if it contains a completely different number of letters), with a special sign indicating that there was a marginal note for this word. In the margins there would be a ק sign (for qere), followed by the consonants of the qere reading. In this way, the vowel points were removed from the qere and written instead on the ketiv. Despite this, the vowels and consonantal letters of the qere were still meant to be read together.