Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

1. Yes, it is strange.

2. I see the ending -ON as a curtailed HINO, 'it is', referring to the thing 
described. The ending -AN may refer to a person, as in, say,  PAXD-AN, 
'coward'; ANI PAXD-AN.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

> Having said that, the suggestion that KShRWN means
> "profiting, he who is profiting [sic--RB]" is equally strange.
> The -wn suffix is more commonly 'abstract, abstract result'
> than referring to a doer, "he who . . .". (It does occur in
> proper names fairly frequently [e.g. Shim`on, Hebron], but
> that doesn't make any common nouns an "agent, doer, patient"
> with a "+human" attribute, to speak semantically.)