Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Dear Noam:

Halot claims that XWT (construct form? absolute XWH ?) means military camp. 
Why? What are his reasons?

HWT Y)YR is listed among cities which, as far as I understand, in Biblical 
times referred to groups of houses surrounded by a defensive wall. Could this 
refer to garrison town with fortificatons, or a type of fortification?

Job 38:14, in the context of verses preceding and following, needs a lot of 
eisegesis to get a picture of the sky, however if the verse is referring to 
the wicked, continuing from verse 13, then a meaning of “their defense” 
easily fits the context. Similarly with Job 41:7(15) the teeth are like tight 
defensive works.

Are there any clues from cognate languages?

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: Noam Eitan <noameitan AT yahoo.com>

> >However, when looking at the context of the nouns, the two occurances in 
> >Job and the >one in Numbers 32:41 refers to the same thing, 
>  
>  
> Job 38:14 uses xwtm (chotam), and the context is that with daylight the 
> earth is like the material for a seal or for a signet ring (basically wax) 
> - it takes a new form; In 41:15 it is the same xwtm (chotam), and the 
> context is that the Leviathan's (crocodile?) scales overlap and fit 
> together like a seal (like a sealed letter). Neither has anything to do 
> with XWT, it has nothing to do with what Numbers 32:41 refers to.
>  
>  
>  
> >while I’ll agree upon more careful checking the context that the other two 
> >come from >“seal(ring)”. In all three cases, the noun has a third person 
> >plural suffix and in the case >in Numbers the noun is plural as well.
>  
> Ezekiel 28:12,  Haggai 2:23, Job 38:14, 41:15 all are in simple noun form, 
> they do not have a third person plural suffix. Numbers 32:41 is the only 
> one that does have a third person plural suffix. 
> 
> >When I look at the contexts of the name “XWT Y)YR” I noticed that they 
> >were listed as >cities, not just encampments. Is this a holdover from an 
> >older name, sort of like “Fort >Laramy” and other such names in the U.S., 
> >or does it refer to something more than just >a military encampment?
>  
> I don't know if there is a clear answer. It is not strickly a military 
> encampment, it can be any small settlement. I would like to speculate that 
> it comes from the root xwh because it refers to any settlement with 
> livestock (xwh - the root for life, Eve was the mother of all living) - 
> FWIW in modern Hebrew xwh means a farm.
>  
> Regards
>  
> Noam
-- 
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