Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Vadim Cherny wrote:

> When you say that hmtz refers to souring, that's merely a presumption. The
> root cells hm-mtz are distinct in other words - hemer, matzot, lehem. That
> cannot be a coincidence.


HH: I guess you never bought a good Bible 
dictionary for Hebrew as I asked you to do. The 
word has that meaning of sour or acidic in 
post-biblical Hebrew. There are related cognates 
with that meaning in Arabic and Aramaic. Other 
languages mentioned with such cognates include 
Akkadian, Egyptian, Ethiopic, Tigre, and Syriac. A 
related word means "salt" in Coptic.


> The translation "leaven" doesn't square with several other instances I
> enumerated in the original post. Particularly, Hos7:4 about bad baker who
> ceases to watch the dough until it becomes hmtz in hot oven. The
> conventional translational "leavened" is absurd. Dough does not leaven in
> hot oven, but is baked.

HH: Perhaps this is the source of your problem. 
The verse does not say that the bread is in the 
oven. It simply says there is no need to heat the 
oven while the bread is getting ready to bake. One 
does not knead the dough while it is in the oven 
either.


Yours,
Harold Holmyard