Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> On 9/24/06, Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru> wrote:
> > Torah is from tur, to instruct, admonish. Suffix hey is not feminine,
but
> > the suffix of result, such as in cotev - ctivah. Thus Torah -
instruction,
> > admonition.
> > You can see other examples at
> > http://vadimcherny.org/hebrew/affix_hey_direction.htm
> > Basically, there are several different suffixes hey, and they have
nothing
> > to do with feminine.
> >
> > Vadim Cherny
>
> I've never heard of this before, and I do not think this is right.
>
> Torah [TWRH] is a nominal form of the root YRH in the hiphil binyan.
> Horah [HWRH] means "he cast, he shot [an arrow]; he pointed out; he
> taught." It is related to the participial form Moreh [MWRH], meaning
> both "teacher" and "archer."
>
> There is a root TWR, which means "to travel around, to spy out, to
> investigate." TWRH does not comes from this root, however. This is
> confirmed by both BDB and Davidson's /Analytical Hebrew and Chaldeed
> Lexicon/.
>
> Be well,
> Yonah

Thank you, Yonah.
I'm of course aware of the orthodox etymology. It doesn't make much sense;
why the tav-form? Presumably, tav-nouns are frozen 2ms future tense verbs,
the least likely form for "to teach."
Derivation from tor - tur is plain; see Prov12:26, etc; admonition.

Vadim Cherny