Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

(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/




--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.10.23/99 - Release Date: 12/09/2005