Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George F. Somsel" <gfsomsel AT juno.com>]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 17:17:39 -0500 "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
writes:
> To All:
> 
> This is a hapax legomai lexeme in Tanakh, do we have any clues as to 
> its definition?
> 
> “A gift in secret ??? anger, and a bribe in the bosom (???) strong 
> fury.”
> 
> Why is the gift in secret, unless neither the giver nor the givee 
> want it to be known that the gift was made? Why wouldn’t they want 
> the gift to be known? Similarly, a bribe in the bosom is being 
> hidden. Why, if not to pervert justice?  What is the typical 
> reaction when people see injustice being practiced, if not fury?
> 
> Hence, from the context, I read this term as having the definition 
> of “excite” or “inflame”.
> 
> Is there any clue from cognate languages or elsewhere that would 
> override the contextual clues?
> 
> Karl W. Randolph.
> -- 
> ___________________________________________________________

Karl,

I think you have gotten precisely the opposite meaning from what is
intended here.  KPH seems related to the Aramaic KP), the Akkadian KIPÛ
and the Arabic KAFA'A which all contain the concept of averting.  In
addition, the parallelism of the passage with the following stich, where
the prep. B may function as an adversitive, would indicate a mollifying
relationship.  The verb KPH might also be related to KPR "to cover" or
"to hide."

george
gfsomsel