Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Rudy,

>In 1 Samuel 1:5 the word aph is giving me a bit of grief. The typical
>meaning from NIDOTT is anger or nostrils. In Samuel it refers to some
>some of portion Samuel gives to Hannah. Can anyone shed some light on
>this word? Is it some idiomatic expression that I don't have the tools
>to decipher? Any help would be appreciated.

HH: You're not the only one. The dual can mean "face." As an idiom that
might suggest "one honorable portion." The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew
thinks it perhaps could mean "side": "a portion (consisting of) one of two
sides, i.e. only half a portion." But that seems illogical, since the
reason given is that he loved her. One LXX has "except that" as if they
read )PS instead of )PYM. The Targum had "choice," according to P. Kyle
McCarter. McCarter thinks that )PYM is an obscure term or an early
corruption. He wonders whether the term might mean "double," citing PY $NYM
in Dt 21:17. Many early interpreters thought it was a corruption of KPLYM
("double": Is 40:2). Another idea is that it could be related to a word
PYMH, "fat," in Job 15:27. McCarter favors restoring KPYM ("according to
the proportion of them") on the basis of an early confusion between K and
). He cites Num 35:8 for the phrase. So it would be KPY with a third
masculine plural pronominal suffix. The idea might be that he gave to Hanna
"one portion according to the proportion of them," meaning that her portion
was equivalent in size to the portion for Penninah and her children. I
don't have a preference or an answer.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard


>
>Regards,
>-r
>
>_______________________________________________
>b-hebrew mailing list
>b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew