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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Jacob-El
  • Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:30:01 -0500

Sorry to say but it is all inherent nonsense. A Personal name is not a grammatically structured word. In particular, YICXAQ is surely not he will laugh, YA(AQOB has certainly nothing to do with heel, and R) UBEN has nothing to do with seeing a son.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Jan 22, 2009, at 9:30 AM, JimStinehart AT aol.com wrote:


Isaac Fried wrote “Absolutely not” to the following statement by Karl: “The
name found in the Bible is simply Y(QB, which is the imperfective grammatical
form of the verb "to be crooked" or "to deal crookedly" as in being less than
honest. A derivative of the same root refers to the ankle, the permanently
crooked part of the leg.” [I will do a separate post later regarding Karl’s
new post on this thread.]

I myself see “heel” (not “ankle”) and “crooked” as being involved with the
name “Jacob”/Y(QB. To the extent that Y(QB s-o-u-n-d-e-d like “he acts
crookedly”, even if the geographical place name Jacob-El/Y(QB-)L is not in fact
connected etymologically to “crooked” (but rather, as many scholars think, is
an old Amorite divine blessing), that would have been a good reason for the
townspeople of that town in the Shephelah to drop the ayin/( in their town’s
original name.

I found on the Internet a very nice account of the name “Jacob”, written by
someone who may be a colleague of our own Yigal Levin. Here is how Dr. Amos
Bar-da of Bar-Ilan University explains Jacob’s name:

“When he was born, Jacob seized hold of Esau’s heel (Heb. ’akev), hence his
name Ya’akov. Semantically, the word ‘akev’ ‘heel’ comes from the
depression that the heel creates when a footprint is made in the ground. The word
means a concavity or hollow, as in Isaiah (40:4): “Let the rugged ground (akov)
become level and the ridges become a plain.” The original meaning of the root
’-k-v refers to tangible, physical things: the depression in the ground and
the bone in the foot. The root then evolved more abstractly in two
directions: 1) in the sense of following sequentially, one thing on the heel of
another; 2) in the sense of being distorted, crooked, circuitous and devious.
Indeed, from the point of view of Esau, Jacob’s name is derived not from ‘heel’
but from ‘devious plotting’: (aoldb://mail/write/ template.htm#_ftn1) [1][1]
“Was he, then, named Jacob that he might supplant me (’-k-v) these two
times? First he took away my birthright and now he has taken away my blessing!”
(Gen. 27:36).

“Grabbing Esau’s heel in birth and giving the name Ya’akov denotes the
beginning of a cycle of hostility between Jacob and his brother Esau. This cycle
concludes with a formative event in the history of Jacob’s life, the episode in
which Esau’s angel wrenches Jacob’s hip and gives him the name Israel.
(aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_ftn2) [1][2] The transition from Esau’s heel
to Jacob’s thigh and the transition from Esau’s view of Jacob as a devious,
crooked person, to the view of Jacob as Israel (in Hebrew, Israel contains the
root y-š-r, ‘straight’) in a sense represents the idea in Isaiah (40:4) that
the “crooked shall become straight,” characteristic of Jacob’s life.”

November 17, 2008
_http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/vayetze/amo.html_
(http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/vayetze/amo.html)

I think that the Y(QB element in “Jacob-El” unfortunately sounded like “he
acts crookedly”, regardless of the actual etymology of this geographical place
name. As Robert Alter states at p. 181 of his 1996 book “Genesis”: “Jacob,
whose name can be construed as ‘he who acts crookedly’….”

In my opinion, the association with the negative phrase “he acts crookedly”
was one reason why the townspeople of Jacob-El decided to drop the ayin near
the beginning of their town’s name. Y(QB was simplified to YQB. Instead of
sounding like “he acts crookedly”, it was now “winepress”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois


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