[b-hebrew] Genesis 20: 1
Isaac Fried
if at math.bu.edu
Fri Oct 12 10:16:59 EDT 2007
Pere,
First of all I want to return to my insistence that what you
persistently call "prefixes" and "suffixes" are personal pronouns. I
will concede the obvious fact, though, that over time the process of
grammaticalization made the personal pronouns conventionally indicate
tense according to their position in the word.
I can hardly imagine the [very] ancients, for which a name was so
full of significance, wasting a part of it on mere grammatical
niceties. Really, is YI-CXAQ 'he will laugh'? And if so when will he
do it, during his entire lifetime? And about what? I am not sure of
its significance and implication but I am struck by the M-CAXEQ of
Genesis 21:9 and Genesis 26:6. YI-CXAQ M-CAXEQ what is this?.
Then, what are this YI- and YO- in YOSEP, Genesis 30:24, YI$MA(EL,
Genesis 16:11, YISRAEL, Genesis 32:29, and YISSAKAR, Genesis 30:18? I
doubt that this YI- is HI), 'he', for the bearer of the name.
If YOKEBED is YHO-KEBED, as correctly pointed out to us by Yigal [YI-
G)AL] and Uri, then why not YOSEP = YHO-SEP?
I tend to think that the -HA- added to )ABRAM, Genesis 17:5, and the -
AH added to SARAIY, Genesis 17:15, are also in honor of a holy name.
While at it I also notice the resemblance of )ABRAM and (AMRAM,
Exodus 6:18.
I suspect that the -YA- of the name MIRYAM, Exodus, 15-20, is also of
this nature. Otherwise what is the meaning of this curious name MIRYAM?
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:40 AM, <pporta at oham.net> <pporta at oham.net> wrote:
>> I feel uneasy with the interpretation of the -YAMIN part of the name
>> BINYAMIN as the right hand side [namely the YEMENITE]. I tend to
>> think that YAMIN = YAH-)AMIN, with YA =YAH being a reference to the
>> God of the Hebrews.
>> After all both his father YA-(AKOB and his
>> grandfather YI-CXAQ had such a reference in their names, methinks.
>
> _____________
>
> Do you really think that the Y of YA-(AKOB and the Y of YI-CXAQ are
> a reference to the name of Israel's God?
>
> Aren't they a mere prefix to show the imperfective or future verb
> tense, the same as other hundreds of samples in the Bible?
>
> Pere Porta
> Barcelona (Spain)
>
>
>
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