Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Naama Zahavi-Ely <nxzaha AT wm.edu>]

Sorry -- I just realized I used x for Caf instead of c;  the word for 
testicles in modern
Hebrew is ashach -- )f$ac (ending in caf, not chet).

I don't think the avnayim in Exodus are testicles;  for that, the preposition 
would have
been "b", not "al".  And you don't usually need to tell people how to figure 
out whether a
baby is a boy or a girl...

Best wishes,

Naama

Naama Zahavi-Ely wrote:

> The term that comes to mind is mevush, which appears only once, in plural 
> with 3ms
> pronominal suffix as mevushav (m:wu$fw, Deuteronomy 25 11) -  a hapax 
> legomena whose
> meaning is absolutely clear.  The root means 'shame', of course.  I would 
> never have
> connected "stones" in Hebrew with testicles, neither in Biblical Hebrew nor 
> in any
> other period of the language.  The formal word in modern hebrew is ashach 
> ()f$fx), and
> I would guess it that it comes from Misnaic Hebrew.  Unfortunately I don't 
> have the
> literature to check its period here.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Naama Zahavi-Ely
>
> Cynthia Edenburg wrote:
>
> > Dan Wagner referred to the possibility of a sexual allusion in the mention
> > of gathering and casting stone. I don't have the literature here to check,
> > and it could be that Gordis does mentione this, but I think it probably 
> > was
> > in reference to H.L. Ginsberg, who to the best of my knowledge first
> > commented on this. The key to this interpretation is of course the
> > parallelism between the two halves of each verse throughout the poem, 
> > which
> > seems to indicate that there should be a sexual allusion parallel to the
> > embracing in v. 5b. Stones as a euphemism for the testicles is attested in
> > other languages, and may be a universal metaphor. Unfortunately, there
> > doesn't seem to be another other occurance of this euphemism in BH, and I
> > haven't been able to find one in MH. Has anyone observed how testicles are
> > euphemistically termed in BH or MH?
> >
> > Cynthia Edenburg
> >
> > The Open University of Israel         Tel. 972-3-6460500    fax.
> > 972-3-460767
> > Dept. of History, Philosophy and Jewish Studies
> > POB 39328     Rehov Klausner   16
> > Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 61392  ISRAEL
> >
> >
> >
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