[b-hebrew] NXM

B. M. Rocine brocine at twcny.rr.com
Tue Apr 8 20:58:08 EDT 2008


Hi Karl,

Noah's name isn't derived from NXM, if that's what you are saying.  It 
is derived from NWX, which is thematic in Gen 8:4 when the ark comes to 
rest on Ararat.

As for NXM, you need to distinguish the stem the word is used in when 
you are trying to understand its meaning.  When NXM is used in the 
Niphal stem about forty-eight times it means to regret, to feel sorry 
about, or to feel grief.  When it is used in the Piel stem about fifty 
times it has a transitive meaning, to (give) comfort (to) someone.  The 
texts are pretty clear.

BTW, I have no idea what you mean when you say RWC is used in Niphal 
stem.  I have no knowledge of such a case.  When the root is used 
transitively it is used in the Hiphil stem, and the corresponding 
passive Hophal stem.  I admit I didn't follow the whole RWC discussion.

Regards,
Bryan

K Randolph wrote:
> How should we understand the verb NXM נחם ?
> It is used well over 100 times in Tanakh, but it seems to have no English
> equivalent. It seems to fall between regretting (feeling sorry), being
> disappointed and consoling, taking a little of each.
>
> So when Lamech named his son Noah, because he is to console, or make us
> regret, all that we made and the sorrowful heavy labor of our hands (Genesis
> 5:29)? Yet YHWH regretted that he made mankind (Genesis 6:6)? And Israel's
> sons tried to sympathize with their father, but he refused to take sympathy
> (Genesis 37:35), in other words the idea of consolation? I am thinking
> through my fingers as I write this, but does this indicate that the
> intransitive meaning carries the idea of feeling sorry, regretting, while
> the transitive meaning has the idea of feeling sorry with, as an effort to
> console?
>   

-- 
B.M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206
W:  (315) 437-6744



More information about the b-hebrew mailing list