Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

yahua'sef wrote:

> I've noticed Psalm 52:2, a glorious Psalm I might add, has the word
> "Havvah"{hav-vaw'} in as the word for "Mischief" or "evil." Is this in any
> way related to Chavvah {khav-vaw'} who just happens to be Eve in
> Beresheit(Genesis)?

No, Joseph, it's completely unrelated. The letters HEH and HETH are in no way 
related and are not
to be confused. They aren't really interchangeable at all, despite their 
similar appearance. The
Psalm uses the word hawwah (lit: "chasm" and figuratively "doom") which 
employs a HEH. Eve's name,
H.awwah is spelled with a HETH and is a pun on the word "to live" and perhaps 
also the word
"serpent" in Aramaic.

Also, Joseph, I agree the Psalm is pretty good, but there is no need to post 
us the entire text of
a Psalm just for us to read. We should keep our posts purely to scholarly 
discussion and not
devotional material. Only those texts which are relevant to a scholarly issue 
need be quoted.

Regards.
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GEORGE ATHAS
 Dept of Semitic Studies,
 University of Sydney
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