Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Isaac Fried" <if AT math.bu.edu>]

Pere,

Excuse me for putting it brashly, but first you complained that you don’t 
understand what I am saying, and now you admit that you are not sure also of 
what King David is saying. It appears to me, though, that we are in 
agreement that the venerable KJV is not above questionable interpretations, 
and that the dictionary compilers occasionally suck their entries from their 
thumb.

I think I have an inkling of what SALITA of Psalms 119:118 means and I will 
get to it systematically. Its elucidation was the purpose of my original 
list. Contextually we understand that the act SALITA has a negative intent.

First I think I know what it does not mean. It does not mean break, crash, 
crack, fracture, rent, rift or tear. How do I know this, because the root 
SLH does not contain the letter R. In other words

סָלִיתָ כָּל-שׁוֹגִים מֵחֻקֶּיךָ

of Psalms 119:118 surely does not mean ‘you cracked the heads and broke the 
bones of all those deviating from your laws’.

Now, there is no denying that the Hebrew roots come in groups or families of 
contiguously and continuously shifting meaning. The understanding of what a 
Hebrew root means is thus considerably enhanced by placing the root within 
its immediate family. It is my understanding that this grouping is governed 
by the equivalence of

B, P, W

G, H, X, K, Q

D, Z, T, Y, S, C $, T

L

M

N

R

with each letter being actually a single consonant root, in particular L 
indicating elevation. By this hypothesis the root SLH [H here is just a 
filler] is a variant of the roots DLH, *ZLH, TLH, *YLH, SLH, CLH, $LH, TLH, 
where * indicates a potential root not in use. All these roots essentially 
and inherently mean ‘pull up, pull out, draw up, draw out, extract’. Hence a 
sensible translation of the Psalms verse is ‘you pulled out all those 
deviating from your laws’.

Now we understand also the relationship between the biblical SILON, ‘thorn’, 
and the modern SILON, ‘jet’, as in MA-TOS SILON.

DELET, door’, is methinks but a TELET, a hanging flap over the entrance.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <pporta AT oham.net>
To: "Isaac Fried" <if AT math.bu.edu>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The root SLH


> > I will give you a detailed response, but first explain to me this. SALITA 
> > of Psalms 119:118 is translated by the NAB as 'reject', [the KJV has it 
> > as 'trodden down']. Is this translation correct, and if yes how do we 
> > know it to be so?
>
> Isaac,
>
> you are putting a question here which is difficult to answer to. Mainly, 
> to my sense, because Ps 119:118 is the only place where this verb SALAH 
> appears in the Bible (in qal) (the word T:SWLEH in Job 28:16 comes from 
> another quite different SALAH)
> We can often be accurate as regards the "exact" translation of a given 
> word because we can verify the different meanings or shades of meaning 
> this word got in other places of the bible (mainly in the same book we are 
> dealing with... )
> But here it is not so.
> The dictionary (my dictionary) meaning of SALAH (in qal) is "to make light 
> of", "toss aside". If this meaning is right (or if these meanings are 
> right), both translations you mention are (would be) wrong... because 
> either "reject" or "tread down" are concepts that differ from "to make 
> light of" and from "toss aside".
> One must too take into account the meaning or sense of the preceding 
> verses (117, 116, 115...) or even of the whose psalm (which verses I have 
> not read nor the psalm...): I feel this can also help to fix the right 
> translation of SALAH in Ps 119:118 but, of course, it is not sure it will 
> help.
>
> I think this is all I can say as a replaying to your question.
>
> Pere Porta
> Barcelona (Spain)
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