Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

You may be correct. On the other hand, the shift from o to u could have been
phonetic, in actual pronunciation. But I won't argue. What's more
interesting to me is that the author actually gave Hannah'a own explanation
"for I have asked him of God", which of course has no relationship to
Samuel's actual name. And of course does remind us of Saul. There is
obviously more here than meets the eye. Ralbag (Rabbi Levi ben Gershon,
Provence, c. 1300) makes an interesting comment - "If I were to say that his
name should have been Saul (Shaul - from "asked"), know that name-callers
are not that precise - like Reuben, who was named 'for God has seen my
misery', or Noah, who was named 'for this one will comfort' (form "NHM") and
should have been called Menahem". While this observation is obviously
uncritical, it does remind us that name-calling and etymology in general are
not an exact science.

Yigal Levin



But it is not Shem_o_el, but Shem_u_el. I.E. it cannot be a pronoun
suffix (which would anyway had a H and not W).

Rather the _u_ is old nominative ending with LAMED-HE noun.

P.T