Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Hi Rudy,

The word "aph" has two basic meanings. The first is "nose" (cf. Prov. 11:22)
, from which is also derived "appayim", meaning "face" (the more common word
for "face" is "pannim"). This "appayim" is used a lot when describing people
who prostrate themselves (lit. "fall on their faces"), either before God or
before a human ruler (cf. Gen. 19:1). "Aph" is then used to donote anger,
mostly of God but sometimes of humans as well; apparently when one gets
angry, his nose heats up. Most often, the expression is "Xarah aph" - Lit.
"his nose heats up", but sometimes it's just "aph". Conversely, "slow to
anger" is "erekh appayim", lit. "long of nose".

The other meaning of "aph" is "even" or "so" or "too". Look at Gen. 40:16,
"I, too, in my dream". There are dozens of example of this. I'd understand
the double portion that Elkanah gave Hannah in this way: "appayim" being the
dual of "also", "manah axat appayim" meaning "a double portion".

By the way, later Hebrew developed the expression "aph (al pi", meaning
"even so", literally "nose over mouth" (at least I don't think it's in the
Tanakh).

Yigal
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rudy Ruiz" <roodee AT thummy.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 8:42 PM
Subject: [b-hebrew] aph


> Greetings,
>
> 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.
>
> Regards,
> -r
>
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