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  • From: "G. Zack" <atdgz AT hotmail.com>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Jacob-El
  • Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:37:54 +0000


My comments were not in the context of Ya(aqob and there is no disagreement
there.

It was rather the wider and sweeping scope of the claim "a personal name is
not a grammatical structure" that I wished to address.

In fact, the opposite used to be the usual case, rather than the exception:
"meaningless labels" , some "Abracadabra" as a name, were not common, nor is
it easy to see how and why they could come about... An arbitrary lottery of
syllables reached by some roulette?

Many, if not most names used to include expression of hope or wishful
thinking for what the parents hoped the bearer to beor become, properties
they wisged him (or her) to possess, and/or in gratitude to a deity for the
bearer's very coming about or, in general, in praise of the same.

At any rate, I think there are enough shared common grounds on this issue for
us to drop it, unless, that is, there is adamant opposition to the above...

Gad Za"k

CC: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
From: if AT math.bu.edu
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Jacob-El
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:19:28 -0500
To: atdgz AT hotmail.com



It is indeed reasonable that the fraction YA of YA(AQOB is a remnant of a
holly name and that the other fraction (AQOB is from the Hebrew root (QB. I
suspect that even RAXEL and LEAH contain the lofty EL (but not EL-AL the
Israeli national airlines). But this YA is certainly not the conventional
grammatical marker "he will", with which YA(AQOB is to be understood as
meaning he-will-do-the-act-(QB, and this is what I mean by a grammatically
structured word. Why not? Because parents don't give their children idiotic
names: And she called him Tickeli saying surely now that I bore him three
sons my husband will tickle me regularly.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On Jan 23, 2009, at 4:18 PM, G. Zack wrote:
Your initial statement was, should I say, sweeping: "... A Personal name is
not a grammatically structured word.".
This, of course, is not the fact.
Even the limitation to "early, biblical names" is overly restrictive.
Certainly all names, royal or lay ending with "Yah" or commencing with "Yho"
etc.,throughout the entire period covered by the bible, were meaningful
structures. But not only.
Gad Za"kCC: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.orgFrom: if AT math.bu.eduSubject: Re:
[b-hebrew] Jacob-ElDate: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:18:25 -0500To: atdgz AT hotmail.com


I am not sure what you are saying. Do you think that YICXAQ the son of SARAH
is the Hebrew word: he will laugh, from the root CXQ? I would agree with you
that, at least the early, biblical names include the names of foreign
deities. It stands to reason that these names were deformed by latter editors
of the bible, and were associated, as a cover up, with fanciful
etymologies.Isaac Fried, Boston UniversityOn Jan 22, 2009, at 5:54 PM, G.
Zack wrote: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.eduDate: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:30:01
-0500To: JimStinehart AT aol.comCC: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.orgSubject: Re:
[b-hebrew] Jacob-ElSorry 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 UniversityOn Jan
22, 2009, at 9:30 AM, JimStinehart AT aol.com wrote:
Isaac Fried wrote “Absolutely not” to the following statement by Karl:
“Thename found in the Bible is simply Y(QB, which is the imperfective
grammaticalform of the verb "to be crooked" or "to deal crookedly" as in
being less thanhonest. A derivative of the same root refers to the ankle,
the permanentlycrooked part of the leg.” [I will do a separate post later
regarding Karl’snew post on this thread.]I myself see “heel” (not “ankle”)
and “crooked” as being involved with thename “Jacob”/Y(QB. To the extent
that Y(QB s-o-u-n-d-e-d like “he actscrookedly”, even if the geographical
place name Jacob-El/Y(QB-)L is not in factconnected etymologically to
“crooked” (but rather, as many scholars think, isan old Amorite divine
blessing), that would have been a good reason for thetownspeople of that
town in the Shephelah to drop the ayin/( in their town’soriginal name.I
found on the Internet a very nice account of the name “Jacob”, written
bysomeone who may be a colleague of our own Yigal Levin. Here is how Dr.
AmosBar-da of Bar-Ilan University explains Jacob’s name:“When he was born,
Jacob seized hold of Esau’s heel (Heb. ’akev), hence hisname Ya’akov.
Semantically, the word ‘akev’ ‘heel’ comes from thedepression that the heel
creates when a footprint is made in the ground. The wordmeans 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 andthe
bone in the foot. The root then evolved more abstractly in twodirections:
1) in the sense of following sequentially, one thing on the heel ofanother;
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 twotimes?
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 thebeginning of a cycle of hostility between Jacob and his
brother Esau. This cycleconcludes with a formative event in the history of
Jacob’s life, the episode inwhich 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 heelto 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 theroot y-š-r, ‘straight’) in a sense
represents the idea in Isaiah (40:4) thatthe “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
“heacts crookedly”, regardless of the actual etymology of this geographical
placename. 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 nearthe
beginning of their town’s name. Y(QB was simplified to YQB. Instead
ofsounding like “he acts crookedly”, it was now “winepress”.Jim
StinehartEvanston, Illinois
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