Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Ishinan,

I won't and can't comment on the Indo-European "plough". 

As far as the Arabic "flg" - as much as we might make of Arabic "cognates",
we must remember that Arabic is a different branch of Semitic languages, and
that ANY written form of Arabic, certainly Classical Arabic, is many
centuries later than Biblical Hebrew. So that even if the Hebrew and Arabic
roots do derive from the same Proto-Semitic origin, their meanings don't
have to be related. If anything, I would posit that the Arabic meaning of
"do make cuts in the earth" is derived from the older "divide".

In the Bible itself, the verb PLG appears only 4 times. Gen. 10:25 and 1
Chr. 1:19 are identical. In Job 38:25, "divided a watercourse" seems to work
fine in the context. And Ps. 55:10 refers to "PLG"ing the enemy's tongues,
which, while it does not refer directly to Gen. 11, certainly carries the
same idea.

As a noun, Peleg is mostly connected to streams of water. Judges 5:15-16
refers to the "Pelagot" or the tribe of Reuben in a military context -
"divisions" sound right to me. And 2 Chr. 35:5 and 12 speaks of divisions of
Levites and Priests.

And finally, "in Peleg's days the earth was ploughed"? Why? The first
agriculturist was Cain (Gen. 4:2), and nowhere else does the Bible give a
postdiluvian etiology for something that was already "invented" before the
flood.

Yigal Levin  

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Ishinan
Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2010 11:07 PM
To: B-Hebrew
Subject: [b-hebrew] Hebrew "PLG"----- was ---> Gen 10:25 dividing the earth

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