Biblical Hebrew Forum

["G. Zack" <atdgz AT hotmail.com>]

Isaac,

I am amazed at your statement.

Without citing a host of clear counter examples from the entire ancient 
Middle East (and for centuries later throughout Europe), let alone other, 
unrelated cultures, and as analyzed  in great detail by, e.g.,  experts of 
ancient Semite  languages (Cross, Alt and others) it is quite evident, as one 
common example,  that  names containing references to deities and their 
wishful or thanked-for "involvement" in the named individual's very-being 
abound (names containing il or )el, Yo, Ywo etc. as well as other deities, 
such as Ba'al etc.).

Perhaps I miss the point. If you meant that a name is grammatically, 
linguistically not a sentence, this all will grant as self evident and 
fundamental truism of those disciplines.

But if you deny intended meaningfulness in combining meaningful units into a 
single label of a meaningful positing of an idea etc.--I doubt anyone would 
support that.

I'd rather believe that I missed your argument altogether...

Gad Za"k

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