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  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] "Shaf`el" in Hebrew?
  • Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:55:28 -0500

Yitzhak:

We have ZPT occuring thrice in two verses, but was it black? Was it dark at
all? As far as I know, only mineral crude is black, but once it is cleaned of
its impurities, it is usually a clear beige liquid to almost colorless. By
stating that ZPT = "pitch, black" are we not imposing modern, western
understanding onto an ancient noun? Would Moses' mother have had access to
tar made of mineral crude? I don't think so.

But if we read Song of Songs 1:6 as $ZP, we have a poetic reference to the
person having been out in the sun and gotten tanned. Other than this one,
disputed instance, there is no example of ZPT being a verb in B-Hebrew.

(D is a very common word in Hebrew, so common in fact that there were some
constructs that contained (D as one of their elements. (D )$R is a construct
found in over 40 verses that means "until". If we accept that $- in Judges
1:6 is a constraction for )$R, and remember in the context that this is
Deborah singing in the first person, we have the construct "...until I,
Deborah, arose, I, a mother in Israel, arose." which is a Qal first person
singular.

We have no other tool than context to determine what is the meaning of a
lexeme. If the lexeme is used only a few times, it is like looking at a low
resolution picture - it will be blurry and details hard to pick out. If it is
used many times, it is like looking at a high resolution picture where
details stand out. I know of no careful lexicographer who will recognize a
meaning based on only one occurance of a lexeme, unless there are no other
clues, such as other occurances of said lexeme.

On the other hand, I am very reticent to assign roots where they do not
appear in Tanakh. For example, there is no $BL (other than a noun meaning
train of dress, used once) in Tanakh, so the happax legomai $BLWL can only be
guessed at: the root BLL meaning to mix up, such as fodder for animals,
doesn't seem to fit. The same with $Q(RWRT, which may be from a quadrilateral
root as the root Q(R is not found. Or these could be loan words from other
languages. The picture is too low resolution to be certain.

All I can say for certain is that I can see no clear evidence for a shafel
root in B-Hebrew.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>

>
> Karl Randolph wrote:
> > As for the Shafel, did the ancient Hebrews ever speak Amarna Canaanite?
>
> I think the Canaanite glosses in the Amarna tablets are an indicator
> of an ancestor language to that of the Israelites, Judahites,
> Hebrews, etc.
>
> > Song of Songs, poetry, in 1:6 I read three $- prefixes, one of
> > them before the verb $ZP. I don't see any causative in the use
> > there beyond that implied by )$R.
>
> This has been read as Shafel from Zefet (pitch, black) = to make
> black. The sun made me black = Tanned me. Rabin (in the
> article cited above) takes exception to this, though, "for phonetic
> reasons" among others. He doesn't elaborate.
>
> > In Judges 5:7 Deborah is singing after the fact, the context also
> > indicates that this was a victory song after the victory. So your
> > question about the perfective being used in this phrase to
> > indicate future doesn't apply.
>
> One must be careful about using context to determine meaning
> when other methods (comparative analysis of the word in other
> places in the bible) are available. Just a few verses back in the
> same chapter there is an almost word-for-word correspondence
> between Judges 5 and Psalm 68. So you can't always conclude
> that the context of the word currently is the original context. But
> you can determine the meaning and usage of words by comparative
> analysis if they are common enough and Ad is very common. It
> seems safer then to first determine what the form of Ad as it is
> used means, and then see how it fits. In this case, the most
> common reading seems to be to understand -ty as "feminine 2nd
> person" (normally just -t), and read "until you arose, Deborah."
> This fits the meaning of Ad as explained above, and assumes $
> is a relative pronoun, not a Shafel indicator.
>
> > While the Shafel form may existed in other languages, I see no
> > evidence that it existed in Hebrew. Even $LHBT is used only three
> > times (according to a quick electronic search) in contexts that
> > can call into question if it is a $- prefix.
>
> I suggest you look up the articles cited above as well, to see the
> various evidence. In the end, like I said, it is considered by Rabin
> and Soggin as external influence on Hebrew by Amorite or
> Akkadian, and not an original verb form.
>
> As for the mentioned words in which you expressed interest:
> Shablul - from bll (mix fluids) but also in Arabic (made wet) and
> in Akkadian (sprayed). Various translations read it as snail, worm,
> wax, etc, but all are valid for this etymology.
>
> Sheqa(rurot - Gesenius in 1815 already read it as a Shafel from
> q(r (bottom of pit), which has similar meanings in Syriac, Arabic,
> and Sokort (sp?)
>
> Soggin calls the above isolated words for which no conclusion
> can be made regarding their character.
>
> Finally, we should mention Hishtah.awwah, which in Ugaritic is
> a Shafel form, so there the connection with Shafel is much
> clearer (And yet, the presence of the Hi- prefix suggests it is
> used as a quadratic root $-h.-w-w in Hitapel form, I guess).
>
> Yitzhak Sapir
--
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