Biblical Hebrew Forum

[berlant AT advanced-studies.org]

Thanks for the discussion, as it helped me refine 
my etymology. I kind of suspected that Isaac's 
etymology was "idiosyncratic" and I agree that 
the arguments and evidence he presented to 
support it are not very convincing. So I still 
think that my etymology is the best one, notwithstanding George’s objections.

To wit, at 01:20 PM 3/9/2010, George wrote:

>The word for ‘open’ in Hebrew is tri-consonantal Pe-Tav-Het

 However, if one can accept the postulates that 
(1) tri-consonantal roots were probably derived 
by extending bi-consonantal roots, and (2) Tet is 
probably a reflex of Tav, it is very possible, if 
not highly probable, that the root Pe-Tav of 
Pe-Tav-Het ‘to open, free, loosen’ was a variant 
of the root Pe-Tet of the Heb. verb for opening 
Pe-Tet-Resh  ‘to open,  free, escape.’ So, it is 
equally probable that Pe-Tav-Het was derived 
simply by affixing Het to Pe-Tav, while 
Pe-Tav-Resh ‘to interpret’ was derived simply by 
affixing Resh to Pe-Tav. Hence these words for 
opening and interpreting are as cognate as they clearly reveal they are.

I therefore have to agree here with Isaac, who wrote:

> Pe-Tet-Resh is 'solved', which in English 
means 'loosened', and so is Pe-Tav-Resh.

At 01:20 PM 3/9/2010, George also wrote:

> a good case can be made for the word ‘see’ 
being biconsonantal (Resh-Aleph).

However,  if one can also accept the postulate 
that bi-consonantal roots were probably derived 
by extending mono-consonantal roots, it is also 
probable that Resh- Aleph was a vowelized form of 
Resh, and Resh-Aleph-Heh was an extended form of 
Resh-Aleph — for reasons I will discuss more 
below and in response to the recent question 
regarding the names of Egyptian deities.

At 01:20 PM 3/9/2010, George Athas also wrote:
>The kind of verbal compounding you’ve suggested does not really take place

OTOH, in view of this objection, I’m amending my 
etymology slightly to read that Pe-Tav-Resh 'to 
interpret' was derived from (1) the widespread, 
bi-consonsontal Afro-Asiatic (AA) root PT that 
came into Heb as the roots Pe-Tav and Pe-Tet of 
the aforementioned verbs for opening, and (2) the 
equally widespread, mono-consonantal AA root R 
that yielded (a) Aleph-Vov-Resh ‘light’ and (b) 
Resh-Aleph-Heh ‘to see’ as well as (c) the 
latter’s defective form which referred to a ‘prophet or prophetic vision’.

Pe-Tet-Resh ‘to interpret’ is therefore also 
transparently cognate with, for instance, Empire 
Aramaic PTR ‘to detach,’ Jewish Aramaic PTR ‘to 
dismiss or free’, Acadian “pataru” ‘to loosen, 
draw out’, and Mandaic “PTR” ‘to open up, 
separate’ — all of which pertain directly or 
indirectly to opening up and, thus, exposing 
things to light or shedding light on them.
So, there are reasons for believing that 
Pe-Tav-Resh ‘to interpret’ was coined to imply 
that interpreting was originally(a) what my 
grandmother used to call "Opening the light!," 
when she wanted to see; (b) what some Biblical 
passages refer to metaphorically as opening the 
eyes, and (c) what other Biblical passages refer to as prophetic visions.

This etymology can be supported, first, by noting 
that interpreting is a synonym for enlightening, 
and Aleph-Vov-Resh was deducibly a vowelized form 
of Resh ‘light’ that was used to refer to 
enlightenment in 1 Sam 14:27 — when Johnathan 
eats the prohibited honey, and “his eyes were 
enlightened (Aleph-Vov-Resh)” — and again in 1 
Sam 14:29, when Johnathan exclaims “how mine eyes 
have been enlightened (Aleph-Vov-Resh) because I 
tasted a little of this honey.” Accordingly, it 
would have been more than reasonable to derive 
Pe-Tav- Resh ‘to interpret’ from Pe-Tav ‘to open’ 
+ Resh ‘light’, to imply that interpreting was en-lightening.

The use of Aleph-Vov-Resh ‘light’ with ayin to 
express “enlightenment” in the preceding passages 
is therefore fully equivalent to the use of 
Pe-Tav-Het ‘to open’ with ayin to express 
enlightenment in Gen 3:5, wherein the serpent 
tells Eve that if she eats the forbidden fruit 
“your eyes shall be opened (Pe-Tav-Het),” and 
again in Gen 3:7, which explains that the “the eyes of them both were opened.”

As I mentioned above, this analysis agrees with 
Isaac’s suggestion that interpreting is 
synonymous with solving, but not because Heb. 
Resh referred to grazing. On the contrary, just 
as Heb. PTR ‘ to interpret’ reveals it was 
derived from Pe-Tet “to open + Resh ‘light,” 
Latin (L.) “solvere,” “to solve” clearly reveals 
it was derived from L. “sol” ‘sun’ + the root 
ver- of L. words for truth, evidently to imply 
that solving was bringing the truth to light. It 
is deducibly for the same reason that Germanic 
(Gc.) words for loosening reveal that they are 
terminally palatalized derivatives of the 
Proto-Indo-European *leuk- that yielded scores of 
IE words for light, though a fuller discussion of 
these words is well beyond this list’s scope.


Regards,

Steve Berlant