Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

>Anyway, 
>that connection would not be the derivation of "seven" from "rest", 
>although just possibly vice versa.

Exactly!

The fact that this derivation is more ancient than the Mosaic period 
shows that this derivation is directly linked to the more ancient 
tradition that Yah rested on the seventh 'day' after his labours.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Kirk [mailto:peter AT qaya.org]
Sent: Thu 10/27/2005 11:04 PM
To: Read, James C
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Yom in Biblical and Rabbinic Texts
 
On 27/10/2005 22:41, Read, James C wrote:

>... 
>A week being seven days and the seventh day being the 'shabath' 
>etymologically linked to the number 7 which comes from the verb 
>'to rest' as you already know.
>
>  
>
Actually I know that this is not true. There are two different Hebrew 
roots here, $B( (that's ayin at the end) "seven" and $BT "cease, rest". 
Both are common Semitic roots and so far more ancient than Hebrew. It is 
just possible that they have a connection in the remote prehistory of 
Semitic languages, but I won't go into the implications of this. Anyway, 
that connection would not be the derivation of "seven" from "rest", 
although just possibly vice versa.

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


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>From hholmyard AT ont.com  Thu Oct 27 18:27:35 2005
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Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 17:24:43 -0500
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Yom in Biblical and Rabbinic Texts
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Dear James,

>I agree that Daniel's prophecy is definitely talking about years.
>But I hazard that while the original meaning of the word was seven,
>that many hearing this construct 'seventy sevens' out of context
>would have more readily understood 70 weeks.
>When talking about time 'seven' had the primary meaning of 'week'.
>A week being seven days and the seventh day being the 'shabath'
>etymologically linked to the number 7 which comes from the verb
>'to rest' as you already know.

HH: Peter's point takes some of the steam out of your argument, since
you were claiming that a linguistic linkage of "seven" ("week") with
"sabbath" made it more natural for people to think of "seven" in
terms of days.

>An English example may be 'fortnight' which is shortened form of
>'fourteen nights' or more simpy put 'two weeks'. If I spoke about
>a 'fortnight of plagues' and historical sources showed that the
>period I was referring to was of 14 years, you would naturally conclude
>that I was talking about a 14 year period and making poetic use of
>the word 'fortnight' which fits the context poetically as 14 nights
>could be metaphorically indicative of 14 dark periods. However, under
>no circumstances would you ever propose that 'fortnight' actually meant
>'14 years' in a context other than a poetic usage.

HH: There are two problems with this remark:

1. A fortnight has a dictionary definition as a period of 14 days.
Being defined in terms of days, it would not mean years. But the
Hebrew word is evidently not defined in terms of days. It can refer
to years and does so in more than one context.

2. The example I gave you from Genesis 29:27 is not a poetic context.
So the word can refer to years outside of a poetic context.

                                        Yours,
                                        Harold Holmyard