Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Stephen and Rebecca Shead" <srshead AT gmail.com>]

Gabe,

HALOT (following others) suggests that it may be the other way around: the
noun "shoulder" gave rise to a verb "to do something early" (e.g. get up
early, set out early), as a development from "to load up the animals in the
morning" (i.e. put things on their shoulders before setting out). They list
a couple of cognate verbs (Ugaritic *tkm* and Ethiopian *sakama*) which mean
"to place on the shoulders".

Also, a word for getting up early isn't necessarily so "special" or strange.
Spanish has one: *madrugar* (presumably from *madrugada*, "early morning").

Stephen Shead
Centro de Estudios Pastorales
Santiago, Chile

From: Gabe Eisenstein <gabe AT cascadeaccess.com>
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:31:39 -0700
> Subject: [b-hebrew] shacham
> I've been annoyingly pushing my agenda regarding Shechem as a theme in
> northern Israelite texts. But here's a strictly linguistic question: why
> does my Strong's say that shechem in the sense of "shoulder" derives from
> shacham, "to rise up early"?
> And further: what is the origin of this word? Why is there a special word
> for getting up early?
>
> A nonlinguistic question is: why is this verb used so often in the Bible?
> Why do people always have to do things early in the morning?
>
>
> Gabe Eisenstein
>
>