Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Joseph I. Lauer" <josephlauer AT hotmail.com>]

    Yigal Levin writes that "Davka", spelled Dalet-Vav-Qoph-Aleph -  DWQ)
[also Dalet-Vav-Vav-Qoph-Aleph -  DWWQ)], "seems to come from the root
"DYQ'", while Peter Kirk writes that "The word which occurs in the Tanakh is
DAWEQ (dalet-dagesh-qamats-vav-tsere-qof) = bulwark, siege-wall, 2 Ki 25:1,
Jer 52:4, Ezk 4:2, 17:17, 21:27, 26:8 (data from BDB), and clearly comes
from the same root as Davka. In fact Davka may well be the Aramaic form of
this word, with the final alef for the article. The shift from "siege-wall"
to "precise" could well be a case of metaphorical extension."
    Jastrow (p. 288) ties the Aramaic Davka (exactness, minuteness) to
Duk/DWQ (pp. 287-88), which he defines, with examples, as "1) to pound,
beat; to powder... 2) to examine carefully, to be particular, exact in
expression; to pay special attention, to mind." See
http://www.cwru.edu/univlib/preserve/Etana/JAST.DICv1/JAST.DICv1.281.300.pdf
    As to "DYQ", Jastrow, p. 304, has "v. [Duk/DWQ]". See
http://www.cwru.edu/univlib/preserve/Etana/JAST.DICv1/JAST.DICv1.301.320.pdf
    (Volume I of the Jastrow dictionary [pp. 1-683] is on-line in PDF form
at http://www.cwru.edu/univlib/preserve/Etana/JAST.DICv1/JAST.DICv1.html )
    (Volume II of the Jastrow dictionary [pp. 685-1736] is at
http://www.cwru.edu/univlib/preserve/Etana/JAST.DICv1/JAST.DICv1.html )
    Joseph I. Lauer
    Brooklyn, New York