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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] "hed" in Ezekiel 7:7

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  • From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • To: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • Cc: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] "hed" in Ezekiel 7:7
  • Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 16:35:34 +0200

On 12/7/06, Yigal Levin wrote:
This make it more problematic. If hed is a shortened (or construct) form of
hedad, it has nothing to do with thunder, and it's difficult to see the
connection between "shouts of joy" and Hadad. On the othe hand, the Arabic,
and more importanatly the Ugaritic cognates seem to mean "thunderous noise",
which fits Hadad better. And if so, there is no connection between "hed" and
"hedad".

Well, my search for hedɔd shows that the word appears five times in the
Bible: Isaiah 16:9, 16:10, Jeremiah 25:30, 48:33, 51:14.

Now, of these, Isaiah 16:10 and Jeremiah 48:33 which are similar enough
in wording to suggest dependence, could be taken to mean that hedɔd
refers to a shout of joy.

But Isaiah 16:9, just a verse before one of these is speaking of a different
kind of shout: JPS translates it the "battle shout", and that very much
suggests the noise of the battle drums.

In Jeremiah 25:30 it is parallel to $ɔ)og yi$)ag (JPS: "he shall mightly
roar"), and in Jeremiah 51:14, we seem to be speaking of an "uproar."

In light of these, I think that hedɔd probably had no connotation of joy
in ancient times, and its meaning was more of some kind of thunderous
roar: a roar that could come in joy, but could also be the terrifying
roar of battle.

This brings us closer to the word hed and the possible cognates. I
am not sure these words are all cognates. It isn't clear to me that hed
and Arabic ha:dd are both derived from the same word in some Common
Semitic word. However, these all seem to be reflexes of the same root,
so the root is equivalent in all.

And thanks for the article, Yitzhak. I'll have to read it more carefully. An
article of mine, on theophoric toponyms with "Baal", is due to appear in the
next Judea and Samaria Studies (in Hebrew). If you (or anyone else) want, I
can email you a pre-copy.

I would very much appreciate a copy. I copied that O'Connor article into
Microsoft Word now and it came out over 60 pages!

Yitzhak Sapir



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