Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Reinier de Blois" <rdeblois AT www.biblesocieties.org>]

Good point, but I still feel that there is not enough evidence in the text to 
warrant a translation with "charm". The only support I have been able to find 
so far is Nahum 3:4 where XEN is somewhat parallel to K$APIYM "sorceries". 
But also there a translation with "beauty" is perfectly possible.
In all other cases where XEN is preceded by another noun in the construct 
state (at least those I could find) it means "beauty".

Best wishes,

Reinier

>HH: But XN also has the sense of "favor," and a stone that gave favor 
>would be a charm. An interesting point here relative to Liz's 
>question about intensive plurals is that B(L ("owner") is often 
>plural with a singular suffix in a singular meaning. This is the 
>judgment of Brown-Driver-Briggs, which also finds an emphatic plural 
>for the word which has the meaning of "great lord" or "sovereign 
>owner." So it might be possible to translate here "its owner."