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  • From: dwashbur AT nyx.net
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] shacham
  • Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:08:53 -0600

While it's good to look for cognates and try to find connections between
words with
apparently-similar roots and such, it doesn't always work. An example I like
to use is "nice,"
which comes from a Latin root meaning "ignorant." The word "strike" can mean
"to hit" in
bowling but "to miss" in baseball. And so it goes. Words mean what they
mean because a
society chooses to use them that way. There may or may not be any connection
to a root. I
say this, not to squelch the question of connection between these two
versions of $KM, but
to illustrate that there may come a point where we simply have to throw up
our hands and
say "there isn't any."

On 15 Oct 2008 at 14:55, Stephen and Rebecca Shead wrote:

> 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
> >
> >
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>


Dave Washburn
"I'll hold the nail. And when I nod my head, you hit it with the hammer."




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