Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yitzhak:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear Harold,
>
> …
> I think your reading of Num 35 is very very forced.  If the author
> went through the trouble of differentiating iron from wood or stone,
> and metal weapons were generally available also in bronze, it
> would have been appropriate to add a listing for bronze.


Two things:

1) The word in Hebrew is not "weapon", rather "implement". While it is true
that weapons are a subset of implements, this would include all the tools
that a working man would more likely have in his hand, like hoes, hammers,
etc. which were more likely made of iron than more expensive bronze. (As far
as I can tell, there was no specialized word in Biblical Hebrew for
"weapon".)

2) As far as I can tell, there was no word in Biblical Hebrew for generic
"metal", hence listing one, and possibly the one most common for implements,
would stand in for all metals (implements of gold and silver can also kill,
but would be very, very unlikely in the hands of a working man).

>
>
> Yitzhak Sapir


Karl W. Randolph.