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  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 1 Kings 21:10, 13 blessing?
  • Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 12:33:42 -0500

Dear Herman:

You weren't on this list when we earlier discussed
in greater detail concepts of lexicography. One of
the biggest differences between me and most modern
lexicographers is that I tend to look for meaning
first in the action referred to, they to the form
in which it is found (semantic domain).

Do words mean one thing and its opposite? Even in
modern English, that is not found except in gutter
slang. Should we expect to find gutter slang in
Tanakh? I don't expect it, do you?

(I will not be surprised if someone out there can
come up with an example of where an opposite usage
started as gutter slang generations ago that has
become gentrified and codified in modern English,
but I can't think of any right now.)

Of course words have an range of meaning whose
borders are fuzzy, for some words the range is
larger and for others it is smaller. BRK in the
verbal usage refers first to the action of kneeling
down, which includes an action which one receives
or gives when kneeling, namely a blessing.

In 1 Kings 21, as well as Job 1:5, I see the action
of kneeling down being understood as figurative to
a person putting himself above another. In the case
of Job's sons that was listed only as a possibility
and then unintentionally. In the case of Naboth, he
was accused of intentionally doing so. "He kneeled
God and the king down" was a capital crime against
both God and the king for it was putting himself
above both. This was not a curse, but a different
crime. The accusation was false, but he died
because of it.

Thanks for this discussion. It has helped me think
through to try to understand this passage.

Karl W. Randolph.

Ps. Is a cemetery ever called a "beit chayyim" in
Tanakh, and if so, where? I draw a blank.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Herman Meester" <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>
>
> Dear Karl,
>
> Although it is quite understandable to try to fit all passages where
> BRK occurs into one meaning of BRK, "bless", we can hardly find a
> single word in Hebrew for which every time one meaning, or rather, one
> translation, is applicable. Of course, BRK means basically "bless",
> even in the cases discussed above. However, the word is used as a
> euphemism for "curse" in order to avoid the latter word and the word
> "God" to occur together. This does not mean that BRK can *mean*
> "curse", because it can't; it only refers to it here in this
> exceptional case. Cf. the word Bet-Chayyim often used for "cemetery",
> which of course *means* "House of the Living", it just refers to
> something else.
>
> regards
> Herman

--
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