Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>]

At 06:46 PM 12/21/2004 -0800, you wrote:
> In response to some other stuff, mshulman wrote:
> >> Unfortunately that is a very non-Biblical view. Women are considered to
> >> have seed. See Leviticus 12:2.
> Revdpickrel replied:
> > Lev. 12:2 does not support that a woman has a seed,  it supports that 
> she has
> > conceived seed from a male and has become preg.  That means the little
> > swimmer has found an egg and she has become with child.  There was 
> still a man
> > present here.
> To be precise, Lev 12:2 does not use the noun zera(, "seed." It uses the
> verb zara(, "to sow [seed]," in the rare hiphil form of that verb,
> specifically tazriya(, the 3rd person feminine singular form. My Accordance
> software finds only three instances of the hiphil of zr( in the Tanakh.
> In Gen 1:11, 12, it is the masculine singular participle in the phrase
> (esheb mazriya( zera(, something akin to "herbs sowing seed." It's clear
> enough here that the (esheb is itself the source of its own "seed." In Gen
> 1:11, 12, unlike Lev 12:2, the noun zera( does actually appear as the object
> of the verb zara(. Nevertheless, it at least hints that the agent who does
> the zara(-ing provides the zera(. It would be plausible, though not entirely
> decisive, to read the tazriya( in Lev 12:2 in a sense parallel to mazriya(
> in Gen 1:11, 12.
> Even if one does not take the use of mazriya( in Gen 1:11, 12 to imply that,
> always, the one who does the hiphil zara(-ing supplies the zera(, Lev 12:2
> still has the woman as the active agent of the zara(-ing, the "sowing," not
> as a passive recipient of zera(.

It is definitely a strange usage here, which is what the Rabbis seem to 
have picked up on. I recall seeing an article (I think in BR) about women 
having seed.


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