Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

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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