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  • From: "David N. da Silva" <huyxh8s02 AT sneakemail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Re: Birthing stones
  • Date: 6 Aug 2004 03:12:57 -0000

The word is 'oben, and it appears in only one other verse, Jeremiah 18:3,
where it refers to a potters' wheel. It is plural (actually dual) in both
verses. A potters' wheel is naturally plural, since there is the wheel the
clay sits on and a lower wheel that the potter turns with his feet.

The translation of Exodus 1:16 in Friedman's The Bible with Sources Revealed,
is: "and he said, "When you deliver the Hebrew women, and you look at the two
stones, if it's a boy then kill him, and if it's a girl then she'll live"."

The KJV also has the notion that oben has something to do with
birthing-stools. I do not know where either the idea that 'oben means
stools, or the idea that it means stones, come from. So I would say that
'oben refers to something of which there are two, which you look at to decide
if a baby is a boy or a girl, and which may have some similarity or
connection with the double wheels of a potters' wheel.

David Nunes da Silva

The Exodus verse is the Elohist, according to Friedman, by the way.


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