Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

It all depends on the degree of credulity with which one is prepared  
to look at the ultimately compact and often intentionally oblique and  
tendentious biblical narrative.

As I said before, biblical names are compounds and need not mean what  
they appear to mean were they words, the biblical midrashic etymology  
notwithstanding. Even NABAL may not be of the root NBL.

I am unable to bring myself to believe that Zbulun is "derived" from  
the root ZBL. Seems to me that it hides some theophoric or "positive"  
concepts, but what they are is not clear. Are they ultimately AZ, AB,  
EL, ON?

I believe that there is agreement on the names DAN (ADON=AD-ON?), GAD  
(GA-AD?), A$ER (AZ-AR, E$-OR, I$-IR?), YHUDAH, ISSAKAR (I$-SAKAR?,  
with I$ being a deity, as in IY$AY of Beit Lexem) that they are  
theophoric.

Possibly, IYZEBEL = I$-ZEBEL the same way that $IMON = I$-MAON (see  
Ps. 90:1).

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Oct 12, 2011, at 6:02 AM, Yigal Levin wrote:

> Why would it be? Zebulun and Iyzebel (Jezebel) are probably both  
> derived
> from Zebul, but Eshbaal, the son of Saul whom the book of Samuel calls
> Ishboshet, probably means "Man of Baal" - "Baal" in this case  
> referring not
> to the Canaanite deity but to YHWH. Nowhere in the Bible are Saul  
> and his
> family accused of idolatry.
>
> Yigal Levin