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  • From: "Isaac Fried" <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: <pporta AT oham.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The root SLH
  • Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 08:35:07 +0200

Pere,

Of course we all “know” [more or less] what XALAH means by context and universal experience, yet you did not tell me what it means. Unfortunately, all you give me is translation --- the replacement of one vague word in Hebrew by two ambiguous and doubtful words in English. Without precise knowledge, you will agree with me, there can be no meaningful discussion of the semantic affinity of GALAH and XALAH. We need to understand, or try to understand, what the ancient Hebrews concretely meant by saying that someone is XOLEH. To see more on the equivalence of GLL, HLL, XLL, KLL, QLL see my posting from September 6, 2007.

What I mean by the ‘equivalence’ of D, Z, T, Y, S, C, $, T is that they are all ‘essentially equal’. If you replace in a Hebrew root, say, D by, say, C, then you get a new root of the same “family”, or same basic meaning as the original. Since we are not dealing here with sharp and clearly delineated mathematical objects the meaning of ‘equal’, ‘close’, ‘same’ [imagine my dillema facing students who keep pestering me with the question if the test is going to be THE SAME as the homeworks], and so on, must be understood in the more general sense of what we agree and understand to be so.

Examples do it all. Take for example 1 Kings 5:22-23

וַיִּשְׁלַח חִירָם, אֶל-שְׁלֹמֹה לֵאמֹר שָׁמַעְתִּי אֵת אֲשֶׁר-שָׁלַחְתָּ אֵלָי אֲנִי אֶעֱשֶׂה אֶת-כָּל-חֶפְצְךָ בַּעֲצֵי אֲרָזִים וּבַעֲצֵי בְרוֹשִׁים עֲבָדַי יֹרִדוּ מִן-הַלְּבָנוֹן יָמָּה וַאֲנִי אֲשִׂימֵם דֹּבְרוֹת בַּיָּם עַד-הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר-תִּשְׁלַח אֵלַי וְנִפַּצְתִּים שָׁם וְאַתָּה תִשָּׂא

How did the ancient Hebrews know what the rare word DOBR-AH means, even if they had possibly never heard it before? First, King Solomon was a wise and practical man [as are we] who understood the logistics of transporting several hundred large tree trunks from the cedar forests of the Lebanon to Jerusalem, and would have done the same inventive and sensible thing Xiram proposed to do. But he had also a keen, discerning, and sensitive ear, not spoiled yet by dictionaries and the like, to the language and could understand right away the choice of this technical word DOBRA-AH. His intuition told him within a microsecond of the equivalence of

DOBRA-AH, ZOBRA-AH, TOBRA-AH, YOBRA-AH, SOBRA-AH, COBRA-AH, $OBRA-AH, TOBRA-AH

Then his mind picked out TOBRA-AH, [recall TABUR of Judges 9:37], COBRA-AH [recall CIBUR, ‘heap’ of 2 Kings 10:8], $OBR-AH [recall the two SEBER of Isaiah 30:14 and Genesis 42:1], TOBR-AH [recall the mountain name TABOR of Psalms 89:13], and he got it right away that DOBRA-AH is a pile, or a collection, or an assembly, [COBRA-AH CBUR-AH or TOBR-AH TBUR-AH or $OBR-AH $BUR-AH] of floating tree trunks, certainly bound together by ropes.

Isaac Fried, Boston University



----- Original Message ----- From: <pporta AT oham.net>
To: "Isaac Fried" <if AT math.bu.edu>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 7:38 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The root SLH


Pere,
I will give you a detailed answer, but first explain to me (no traslations
and no converses please!) what you think XALAH, 'ill', means.

__________

We should study in detail the 75 issues in the Bible where verb XALAH appears (in all forms and conjugations).
But taking as a model 1K 17:17, where a boy XALAH and ... died, I think XALAH means (in qal) "to be weak, sick", as we read in dictionaries.
Now, I think all of us know (either in theory or in practice) what "to be weak, sick" means: so no need of explanations on this...

Pere Porta





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