Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yaakov:
Thanks for your reply.

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 10:16 PM, Yaakov Stein <yaakov_s AT rad.com> wrote:

>
> Karl
>
> First, (RWT is the possessive form of (RWH,
> which also appears several times as "nakedness".
>
> I found only twice, in Exodus 28:42 and Leviticus 18:6.

On the other hand, Isaiah 19:7 has the same spelling not in the possessive
use, which the dictionary gets around by listing it as the happax legomenon
plural of (RH, and Habakkuk 3:13 is more problematic.


> However, (RWH can also have the broader meaning of "missing something",
> where that "something" can be other than clothes.
> This is similar to the English use of "bare minimum" or "bare
> essentials", where "bare" takes a broader meaning than "naked".
>
> So, (RWT DBR means that the man found something missing in his wife.
>
> In other words, you are suggesting that this is more of an idiomatic use
instead of according to strict dictionary meaning. That makes sense.


> (RWT H)RC means "what the land is missing", i.e. where there is
> something missing in its fortifications.
>
> That could be more than just fortifications, e.g. the land could have been
depopulated from disease so that the fortifications could not be manned, or
other "bareness", i.e. weakness, that would induce an enemy to attack.


> Yaakov (J) Stein
>

Karl W. Randolph.