Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

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`LMH
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I can see no biblical textual grounds for the claim that `lmh can mean
"virgin". There seem to be only four examples of the word being used in the
OT/HB:

Gen 24:43

   (speaker standing by a spring) "let the young woman [`lmh] come
   out and draw (from the spring)..."

Ex 2:8

   Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "go." So the young woman [`lmh]
   went and called the child's mother.

Is 7:14

   The young woman [`lmh] shall conceive...

Prov 30:19

   ... the way of a man with a young woman [`lmh].

Nothing in any of these uses points to any idea of virginity being
suggested. In fact, there is no reason to suspect that the idea of virginity
is contained in these words -- if it were not for the fact that the LXX
translated Is 7:14 with parthenos, Greek for "virgin", which in turn was
translated in the Peshitto as the Aramaic cognate of btwlh, suggesting that
btwlh continued to mean "virgin".

The masculine form `lm is also used in the OT/HB, a form which should help
to clarify the significance of the feminine form. Does one think that the
writer implies any sense of virginity in the following?

1Sam 20:22

   But if I say to the young man [`lm], 'Look...'

or

1Sam17:56

   Enquire whose son the stripling [`lm] is

I should hope not. In the masculine form we are dealing with an age related
term. Is there anything to suggest in the feminine form `lmh that its usage
is anything different? Or is there anything in the OT/HB to suggest that
`lmh means "virgin"?

BDB relates `lm to (sexual) maturity, citing an Aramaic cognate, meaning "be
strong", and the Palmyrene feminine plural form, meaning "harlots".


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BTWLH
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btwlh on the other hand is related to virginity in a legalistically viewed
sense.

Gen 24:16

   (Rebekah was) a virgin [btwlh], whom no man had known

Deut 22:13-5

   If a man marries a woman,... slandering her saying,

   "I married this woman, but when I lay with her I found that she
   was not a virgin."

   Then the father and mother of the young woman shall then submit
   the evidence of the young woman's virginity to the elders of the
   city at the gate

Deut22:23

   If a young woman [n`rh], a virgin [btwlh] already engaged to be
   married, and a man meets her in the city, and lies with her...

Deut22:23

   If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged and seizes her and
   lies with her...

In each of the Deuteronomy examples we have rulings about women specifically
dealing with the loss of virginity. 22:23 is perhaps more helpful for it
confronts btwlh with n`rh, so btwlh is clearly not directly related to being
a young woman. Again, as Gen 24:16 uses btwlh in relation to "whom no man
had known", when in the same chapter we come to v43 and the young woman
[`lmh] drawing at the well, we are shown the difference between the two
words, the former related to virginity, the latter not.

People have used the argument that, because in Joel 1:8 btwlh is related to
a widow, the word cannot fundamentally refer to virginity, yet in the verse
cited we find

   'ly cbtwlh     "lament like a virgin"

and, as this a simile, the text doesn't state that the widow was a btwlh,
only that she should lament like one. Therefore there is nothing here to
contradict the evidence from elsewhere that points to btwlh meaning
"virgin". The argument is obviously ill-founded.

The following ruling about priestly marriage

Lev 21:14

   ...he shall marry a virgin [btwlh] of his own kin

not only contrasts btwlh with "widow", "divorcee", "defiled woman" and
"prostitute", all of whom are no longer virgins, but it also paraphrases
v13:

   He shall marry a woman in her virginity [btwlym]

A btwlh is therefore a "woman in her virginity"


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Comparison
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Virginity is a checkable situation and I'd guess that the evidence mentioned
in Deut 22:15 involves the presentation of witnesses who had checked before
the marriage. (How else could one demonstrate prior virginity?) The
Deuteronomy examples relate btwlh to situations regarding loss of virginity.

The `lmh examples don't deal at all with virginity, and I can't imagine that
their writers had reason for, or means of, checking the young woman's
virginity or had need of the significance of "virgin" in their discourse.
These examples deal with two young women in public situations, a pregnant
woman and a young woman apparently involved in sexual activities.

The young woman in Is 7:14, as has been pointed out, is already with child,
so I can see no way to claim that the verse says that she was a virgin at
the time. Being pregnant normally suggests that she was no longer a virgin,
and none of the other examples of `lmh contributes anything to suggest the
contrary.

I can see no way to escape the fact that btwlh means "virgin". At the same
time, there is nothing which suggests that `lmh has anything directly to do
with the notion of "virgin".


Ian