Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Yes. A similar term is LPNY "liphney" - literally "in the face of...",
meaning both "in front of" and and "previous to". As a geographic term, "Al
peney", "facing", can mean "east of", but also just "across from". In
Aramaic, the root QDM has many of the same meanings as LPNY in Hebrew.

Yigal

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
To: "Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.ac.il>
Cc: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>; "b-hebrew"
<b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2004 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] qedem


> On 23/07/2004 09:13, Jonathan D. Safren wrote:
>
> >To the ancient Israelite, the past was "qedem", meaning that he could see
> >it, it was something he already knew, and therefore it was "in front of,
> >before" him.. Cf. the similar use of the English "before". ...
> >
> >
>
> It is interesting that in English "before" usually refers to the past
> when used in a temporal sense, but it can also refer to the future, as
> "ahead" normally does, in expressions like "You life lies before you" in
> advice to a young person. Is there a similar ambiguity in Hebrew?
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
>
>
>
>