Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Peter:

I started writing this off list to another person, but then realized that 
this goes to the reason I brought up the question in the first place.

Is the Arabic the only recognized cognate language similarity to BLG? With 
all the Hebrew uses of the root being pre-Exilic, making recorded Arabic uses 
well over a thousand years later as well as in a different language, how far 
can we trust the Arabic term to have the same meaning? Even in 
contemporanious uses Hebrew and Aramaic terms sometimes had very different 
meanings, Arabic, being so much later as well, is even further from Hebrew. 
Already Mishnaic Hebrew shows marked differences with Biblical Hebrew, and 
that was earlier than Arabic.

What I find is that the term, as it is used in Job and Psalm 39, if it has 
the meaning of cheering up, it is a gallows kind of cheer, "Eat, drink, and 
be merry, for tomorrow we die!" The Amos and Jeremiah uses don't even fit 
this sort of cheer. That's why I question the dictionary meaning. But the 
uses are too few and not specific enough to recognize its meaning from its 
contexts. That's why I hoped for more clues from cognate languages.

This is one of those verbs where I have no idea what it means, other than 
certain meanings seem to be ruled out; cheering up is one of the meanings 
that seems to be ruled out. Possible meanings include cause to appear, cause 
to act, to reach out, etc.

And yes, I really did read break (dawn) as break (down).

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>

> 
> On 20/10/2004 00:02, Karl Randolph wrote:
> 
> >...
> >Thanx for the response on BLG: it looks as if the Arabic balaja with the 
> >idea of destruction fits the context better than the gloss I had been 
> >given.
> >  
> >
> 
> Where did you get this one from? None of the on-list replies suggested a 
> meaning "destruction" for the Arabic. "Break" when used of dawn does not 
> mean destruction.
> 
> -- 
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
> 
> 
> 

-- 
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