Biblical Hebrew Forum

["James Spinti" <JSpinti AT Eisenbrauns.com>]

One thing I learned in graduate school: If you want to prove something from a 
cognate language, just look long enough in Arabic, and you will find it as 
one of the options :) 

Randomly ransacking a lexicon of a cognate language is NOT a good use of a 
cognate language. You need to have at least a minimal working knowledge of 
the language.

My $.015,
James

________________________________
James Spinti
Marketing Director, Book Sales Division
Eisenbrauns, Good books for more than 35 years
Specializing in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies
jspinti at eisenbrauns dot com
Web: http://www.eisenbrauns.com
Phone: 574-269-2011 ext 226
Fax: 574-269-6788 

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of K Randolph
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 9:30 AM
To: David Kolinsky
Cc: B-Hebrew
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Tents = Community?

David:

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 12:56 AM, David Kolinsky 
<yishalom AT sbcglobal.net>wrote:

> George,
>
> …
>
> Nevertheless, here are the cognates to (oHaeL:
>
> Sabaic - folk, people, community
> Akkadian - tribe, confederation
> Arabic - take a wife, be familiar, inhabited; enable, qualify, competence,
> aptitude
>
> The later 4 in Arabic help to suggest the basic meaning of the word -
> "extend
>  outward" as in 1 - tent 2 - extended family, community 3- one's extending
> / extent, reach, ability
>

Good examples of why cognate language data needs to be taken with a grain,
often a very big grain, of salt. According to a concordance, אהל )HL is used
as a verb only four times, meaning to pitch one’s tent, by extension to
encamp.

I didn’t count the number of times it is used as a noun, meaning tent.

<snip>