Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Randall:

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>wrote:

> [RB]
> >> didn't you notice that Karl did not produce one citation but merely
> >> made an allegation? And you don't have any objections?!
>

This is the advantage of a reputation, where, unless I make an innocent
mistake, I do not set out deliberately to deceive.

>
> OK, I re-read the source and I quote here
>
>            (three >>> is Yitzhaq, two >> is Karl):
> >>> אש - The word 'man' is always spelled איש in the Bible, well over a
> >>> thousand times,
> >>> and never with yodh.   The spelling אש is reserved in the Bible for
> 'fire'.
> >>
> >>
> >>“Flame”, “spark”, synonyms of “fire” are used in the Bible for the metal
> >>head of a tool or weapon, so here it refers to the head of a pickax,
> which
> >>would be heard long before human voices. I already mentioned this.
>
> So "it" refers to 'esh' "fire". And there are ZERO references in the Hebrew
> Bible where esh is the metal head of a tool, whether hammer or pickaxe.
> (also, never in the history of the Hebrew language, as far as we can tell)
> What Karl did not mention is that lahav refers to the blade of a sharp
> instrument, and to a part of a fire (flames ). The word esh never refers to
> a metal tool head. On this word alone his suggestion is without merit. But
> there's more.
>

This is an argument from silence, and this inscription may be the example
that shows it.

But with both LHB/LHBH flame and BRQ lightning, both synonyms of )$ fire,
referring to the metal blades of tools, that opens the possibility for )$ so
also to be used. Just because you know not of another example of )$ so used,
does not mean that it was never so used. You don’t know that.


> Three times in the inscription, the grapheme אש alef-shin
> occurs in a pairing with re`o רעו . This is a classic reciprical idiom for
> 'each other'.


Can you show one example in Tanakh where )Y$ [any synonym for communicate]
)L R(W refers to reciprocity? I can’t find them, but then I have a
reputation of not being very good in my searches. Or for that matter, )Y$
[any verb] R(W with the idea of reciprocity?

In view of the above, you can argue that my answer is an answer from
silence, well enough, but here you claim that “This is a classic reciprical
[sic] idiom for ‘each other’” which means it should be well known, and I
can’t find it.

To be fair, after not finding the exact equivalent, I looked up )Y$ and R(HW
which usually, though not always, has a concept of reciprocity.

What can we deduce from this inscription? The third line down, far left,
part of a word in a damaged section ends with -WBYM, along with MWC) and
MATYM indicating that the materes lectionis were used at the time the stone
was inscribed. The use of )$ is disputed, so it can’t be a proof of
anything. R(W instead of R(HW indicates that spelling was not standardized,
but that phonetic spelling gave close enough results such that people had no
problem understanding what was written.

>
A final thought that just crossed my mind as I prepared to close this
message, is it possible that the disputed )$ on this stone meant neither
“fire” nor “man”, rather is a form of the word Y$, which has alternate
spellings of both )$ and )Y$? And that its uses are not fully understood by
modern linguists? (Are both sides in this discussion wrong?)

Karl W. Randolph.