Shittah

Shittah (שַׁטָּה; plur..]שַׁטַּי) means in Chaldee a line or series. Thus, the passage in Isa 30:8, חקה על ספר, "Noted in a book," is rendered by the Targum, ועל שטיןדספר רשו, "Register it on the lines of the book." The passage in the Song 5:13, "His cheeks are like beds of balsam," is rendered]בעשר שטיןדמיןלשטי גנת בסמא כתיב, i.e. "were written (viz. the two tables of stone which he gave to his people) in ten rows, resembling the rows or beds in the garden of balsam." The Masorites denote with Shittah a series or catalog of words — a register of things of the same import, as a number of verses, pairs, words, which are alike either in vowel oints or letters. Thus, they noted down a list of pairs of words which occur once, but the first of which commences with a Lamed, viz., לאחזת עול (Ge 17:8), באהלו לאשר (Ex 16:16); or they give us a list of thirty-eight words which respectively have in one instance only the accent on the penultima, as רבה (Ge 18:20), יצחק (21:6), וספר (Le 15:13), etc.; or they give a list of words which, on the contrary, occur only once with the accent on the ultima, as הבה (Ge 29:21), מתה (Ge 30:1), ירא (Ge 41:33), etc. See Buxtorf, Tiberias, seu Comnmentarius Massoreticus, p. 273; Levita, Massoreth ha-Massoreth (ed. Ginsburg), p. 205, 210; Frensdorff, Massora Magna, p. 381 sq.; id. Ochla-we-Ochla, § 20. p. 36; § 372, p. 61, 171; § 373, p. 61, 172. (B.P.)