Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Ian,
> This text has a number of difficulties. The first being the significance of
> b++. This has been related to the Hebrew b$$, "on the six(th)". (Not a
> strange connection, the Ugaritic y+tr, is Ishtar.) This would mean that the
> text reads something like,
>
>   On the sixth, the day of the full moon of Hiyaru,
>   the sun went in with her gate-keeper Rashap.

Actually, Gordon renders it "new moon," which is more in keeping
with the meaning of the Hebrew XD$.  It looks to me as though `rbt
is a construct, hence "the setting of the sun."  I'm not sure where
you get "with" and "her" before "gatekeeper," but there's nothing in
the text to indicate these terms.  So the translation is speculative
at best.

Peter wrote in part, in response:

"Of course, if you interpret neither b++ nor `rbt in the Ugaritic text
as referring to an eclipse, we are left with a problem: no-one would
have written such a text (we may presume) just to report that the
sun set on a particular day."

True, but there's more to the tablet.  The reverse continues:

w`bdm tbqrn
skn

This suggests to me that +grh (not precise, but the actual Ugaritic
is virtually impossible to represent in ASCII) is not "gatekeeper,"
but its more common meaning "gate," and hence "gate of r$p."
Hence we may have something along the lines of

"On the 6th day of the new moon [or as Gordon renders, 'in the 6
days of the new moon, == 1st quarter?'] at sunset at the gate of
r$p, the servants did thus and so [meanings for the last 2 words
are apparently uncertain]."  It would be good to know, as well,
whether this is the whole tablet or whether more has broken off.
Judging by the transcription in Gordon, I suspect the former.  But in
any case, if we look at both sides of the tablet, I doubt it has
anything to do with an eclipse.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Éist le glór Dé."