Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Shai Heijmans" <shaih AT post.tau.ac.il>]

Hi Jim,

You wrote:

> The word "mithlahamym" occurs only here.  Its a tough one- an oddity.
> Anyone care to try an explanation (and i already know it means something
> like dainty morsel- and the LXX has "soft" for it.).

There is a very nice (and original!) conjectural reading by Meir Rotenberg,
published in a short article in Leshonenu 45 (1981) pp. 153-154:

KMTLHMYM = KMeTeL HoMYM

The first part of the verse is therefore, according to his suggestion:

The words of the fight seeker are sounding (=homim, root hm"h pres. part.
pl.) like one who is joking (=ke-metel, root tl"l / ht"l)...

For a full explenation see the article.

Shai Heijmans
www.tau.ac.il/~shaih