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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Ambiguities, doubling meanings and puns

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz
  • Cc: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ambiguities, doubling meanings and puns
  • Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 01:11:40 +0100

(Resending to the list as originally intended when I wrote this yesterday)

On 12/09/2005 22:00, Bill Rea wrote:

Peter,

I think I've answered your question in a reply to Harold Holmyard
I posted a few minutes ago.


I might have actually read your reply to Harold if it had had a sensible
subject line.

In that message you wrote:

The writer had a choice of several words which are more directly
related to childbearing that he could have picked from. It seems
clear to me that he chose 'ibaneh over the other options because
of its ability to carry a double meaning in this context.


But is the core meaning of the sentence actually related to
childbearing? It seems to me that the core meaning here is something
like "start a family". I note that in Azerbaijani this would be
expressed by an idiom which literally means "found a house", with a verb
commonly used of building activities - and there is no word play in this
Turkic language. And similarly the idiom BNH BAYIT "build a house" is
used several times in the Hebrew Bible of starting a family, e.g. (with
human subject) Deut. 25:9, Ruth 4:11, cf. 2 Samuel 7:27 etc where God is
the subject. I would understand the idiom in Genesis 16:2, 30:3 as
essentially the passive form of this idiom but with the first person
subject replacing "my house".

I accept that the word play may have had some part in the choice of this
particular word in Genesis 16:2, but basically it must be analysed as an
idiomatic sense of the verb BNH "build", referring not to childbirth but
to starting a family.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/




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