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b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Hebrew "PLG"----- was ---> Gen 10:25 dividing the earth

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  • From: "Ishinan" <ishinan AT comcast.net>
  • To: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Hebrew "PLG"----- was ---> Gen 10:25 dividing the earth
  • Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:07:00 -0600

ISHINAN: I believe the sense of "ploughing" (and not dividing) the earth is a more suitable definition for the Hebrew term "plg" in (Gen 10:25). This would render the following verse as follows:

25 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one Peleg; for in his days was the earth ploughed .......


My proposal for this new definition is based on the following Semitic comparative method .

You may click the following URL to view the comparative method between Hebrew and Arabic . Attached is a JPG comparing the various definitions of plg/flg in both languages.

http://labyrinthoflanguage.freewebsitehosting.com/PLG.html

While the proto-Semitic * plg indeed has a primary sense of divide/split, it also means to plough the land for sowing (cf. Arabic flg ). In addition the term in question, apparently, has been borrowed into the Germanic P.Gmc. *plogo-

In Ælfric's Colloquy the ploughman says : lce dæg ic sceal erian fulne æcer oððe máre. Pleuch a quantity of land for caring for which one plough suffices, Jamieson's Dict.), the word sulh being used to denote the implement :-- Ic hit (property) ágnian wille tó ágenre hte, ðæt ðæt ic hæbbe, and nfre ðé myntan ne plot ne plóh, ne turf ne toft, ne furh ne fótml, L. O.; Th. i. 184, 6. [Icel. plógr; m. a plough; plógs-land an acre: O. H. Ger. pfluoc aratrum.] (E. plog, ploh cf. O.N. plogr "plow"), (cf. O.Fris. ploch, M.L.G. ploch, M.Du. ploech, O.H.G. pfluog).

I suspect that the German term was borrowed from Hebrew itself, via a translation of the Bible. A fact that strongly suggests that originally "plg" was correctly interpreted as "plough" rather than "divide".

Further, based on the Semitic examples cited above, the present Indo-European's conjecture of a Rhaetian origin for the term "plough" is untenable.

Best regards

Ishinan B. Ishibashi


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YIGAL LEVIN: The way I (and I think most people) read the explanation of the name "Peleg" is as a reference to the Tower of Babel story in Gen. 11:1-9. And just as in verse 1 there, "all the earth" refers to the human inhabitants of the earth, not the planet itself, I assume that this is what 10:25 means as well. Does it also refer to the earth being divided in other ways, such as into continents and habitation zones? I don't see it in the text, but who knows?

Doug, any translation is necessarily an interpretation, as is any reading. Both Gen. 10:25 and 11:1 have "ha'arec", which literally means "the earth" or "the land". As you write, 11:1 is specifically about the people of the earth having one tongue. 10:25 simply explains Peleg's name by saying "in his day the earth was divided". The logical inference is to 11:1-9, but if
you want to think that it refers to some other division of the earth, there is no way I can prove that it does not.
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DOUG BELOT: Perhaps i should begin by an apology for dashing in where angels fear to tread , I love your emails back and forth about all sorts of areas of Hebrew, sometimes that have quite a bit of value for me, I am sure they are valuable to you all

Now my query is Hebrew language related in that I want to know , if possible, does Gen 10:25 when speaking of dividing the earth actually mean what it says , and thus explaining the different languages world wide , and the different animals , Kangaroo , in Aus ' Zebra in Africa , etc.

Did the existing "earth" as a round ball divide into different areas , can we safely believe that this is what is written and thus this is what it is meant to be from what is written here in Gen 10:25 , or will your ability to rip it into segments of constanants make this implausible.:











  • [b-hebrew] Hebrew "PLG"----- was ---> Gen 10:25 dividing the earth, Ishinan, 02/21/2010

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