Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John Ronning <ronning AT ilink.nis.za>]

Ian Hutchesson wrote:

> . . .
> Dear John,
>
> Any Eblaite connection is so extremely tenuous, seeing as the only real
> traces are from the third millenium! It must be seen as wishful at best.

Ian, I can see your aversion to any connection between the Bible and the third
millenium (or even second), but you needn't worry that conceding an Eblaite
illumination of this word necessarily implies an ancient source - it doesn't.

That Eblaite may be useful in learning the meaning of Hebrew words, however, 
is I
think taken for granted by everybody.  For example, there is a curious 
appellation of
the serpent/dragon Leviathan/Rahab, NFXF$ BFRIYAX (nachash bariach; Isa 27:1; 
Job
26:13).  The root BRX in Hebrew verbs means to flee or pass through, and 
there is a
noun form - bar or pole.  Neither of these ideas seems to make sense as an 
adjective
in these passages.  Cyrus Gordon suggested long ago on the basis of Arabic 
that it
means "evil."  I.e. "evil serpent," which in the HB would be the serpent of 
Genesis 3.

This suggestion has now received support from Eblaite, where a bilingual
Akkadian/Eblaite dictionary supports "evil" for the cognate of BRX.  More 
importantly,
the dual idea of evil/flee shows up in a Janus (punning) parallelism in Job 
9:25
"Now my days are swifter than a runner;
They flee away/they are evil [barexu], they see no good."

By the way, the same description of Leviathan shows up in Ugaritic 
literature, and
there is little (none in my opinion) question that the Hebrew retains the 
more archaic
spelling and pronunciation (LIWYFTFN) than is found in the Ugaritic tablets 
(spelling
l-t-n).


>
> . . . (on Genesis 2)
>

> >  I suppose whether one agrees with
> >Futato would depend on whether the argument for 'ed as "cloud,"
>
> The problem with such an translation is that there is no sure example in
> the OT/HB.

There's no sure example of any of the suggested translations - context is 
king, as
usual.

>
>
> >and the
> >argument from contex, are more persuasive than the slight difference in
> >idom between clouds rising (or being raised) "from the earth" or "from
> >the ends of the earth."  I find his reasoning persuasive, and perhaps
> >someone could suggest a better explanation for this difference in idiom.
>
> When I first read the passage I thought it referred to a fountain, and as I
> said, this is quite an ordinarily observable phenomenon in the land.
>

You need rain to make the desert vegetation come alive.

>
> re. Philistines:
> >
> >Yet, don't be misled about Caphtorim which is one of the sons of Egypt, son
> >of Ham in the table of nations. The Caphtor tradition was preserved, but
> >what its place in the world was doesn't match the table of nations.
>

You can't possibly know that (getting omniscient again?).


Yours,

John