Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yaakov Stein <yaakov_s AT rad.com>]

> Rather, I would suggest that the verse be broken up as so:
> zhb wksp [w]$n / hbym wqpym wtkyym
> In other words, the verse originally spoke of both ivory and
> elephants, and it was only later when the word hb as
> "elephant" was so antiquated that it remained only in the
> frozen term $nhb that it was reinterpreted in this verse with
> this meaning.

Yitzhak

Thank you for your ingenious explanation.

You could go a further step and say that the word $NHB itself
originated from this verse after the merging of the words.

On the other hand, the word $N-HB could simply refer to
the animal with big teeth, with any of the possibilities
for explaining HB.

BTW, do you know where the modern word PYL comes from ?

Yaakov (J) Stein