Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Tory Thorpe <torythrp AT yahoo.com>]

Jim:

This "two" is a mere typo (should be "to") in Talmon's article. I  
just saw /kwl/ (Ronzevalle's proposed word in line 5) in the footnote  
and knew what it meant. I confess I did not see the typo until now.  
In any case, the verb kaph-waw-lamed does not and cannot mean "two  
measure." It means "to measure, measure out" -- what the farmer does  
with grain during the harvest. If the author of the Gezer Calendar  
divided years into spans of 6-months there is no hint of such in the  
Gezer Calendar. There is no mention of any New Year, and even if you  
trust Albright's old reading "month of harvest and feasting," you  
still have no reason to postulate two New Year celebrations six  
months apart in the GC (emphasis on in the GC). Allowing Albright's  
reading, why isn't there a second month of feasting mentioned in the  
GC? I also think yrh + w read as "two months" is no longer in any  
doubt. The months have no proper names in the Gezer Calendar (neither  
do the 12 months of the pre-exilic Israelian-Judean calendar, ha-abib  
is not a month-name), but there are clearly 12 unnamed months in the  
8 agricultural periods listed the GC: 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 =  
12.

Tory