Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Karl,

> You need to get out of your mind that it refers 
> to flight. Then it makes sense in its contexts. 
> The eagle (and some other mother birds too for 
> that matter) settles down on its nest on its 
> chicks when they are small. In the context of a 
> depressed person (as Jeremiah indicates he was), 
> his limbs (bones) are settled down and remain 
> still because the depressed person lacks the 
> energy to move them. Same action. Then in 
> Genesis 1:2 we have God‘s Spirit settling down 
> and resting on the face of the waters. Same 
> action. As far as I can tell, we don‘t have a 
> term in English that exactly corrosponds to the 
> Hebrew RXP, but a workable translation for all 
> three uses would be ”rest“.

HH: Dora needs to get it out of her mind that RXP 
refers to flight unless it does refer to flight. 
If lexicons and many translations give "hover" 
for the word, and if in rabbinic Hebrew it 
apparently had that meaning, I don't see a 
problem for its biblical contexts. The fact that 
it mean mean "brood" in a cognate language does 
not require it has that meaning in Hebrew. By the 
way, even with "brood," one meaning that 
Webster's Dictionary gives for "brood" is "hover, 
loom."

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard