How can textual criticism illuminate the history of Biblical Hebrew? This book addresses that question by examining the linguistic profile of secondary readings in the Classical Biblical Hebrew, or pre-exilic, corpus. By analysing variants preserved in the textual tradition of the Hebrew Bible, it shows that textual fluidity is not an obstacle but a valuable resource for describing the linguistic history of Biblical Hebrew. The study demonstrates the importance of textual criticism for a finer description of the periodization of Biblical Hebrew. Combining philology and linguistics, the book offers a new perspective on the relationship between textual transmission and the linguistic history of the Biblical Hebrew.