Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Bill:

While I list the two terms as synonyms in my dictionary, they have
distinctly different meanings as listed below.

פקח to open in the sense of giving vision, hearing

פתח to open, the basic sense is to open a hole, opening, door ⇒ to dig or
engrave a hole, ditch, groove as in writing, furrow in field, carving in
relief on a wall or door
As for Gesenius, he is wrong in so many places that I no longer take
anything he wrote at face value. In fact, my dictionary started out as
corrections in the margins of his dictionary as I read Tanakh through over
and over again.

As for etymology, without clear examples to guide us, is mere speculation
with a greater chance of being wrong than right.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 3:17 AM, Bill <wrschmidt2 AT comcast.net> wrote:

> Greetings!
>
> I was just wondering if anybody could tell me whether the Hebrew
> verbs peqach and petah 'to open' are today considered as cognate as
> Gesenius claimed they are in his lexicon, and if so, what the
> original root could have been.
>
> Thanks very much for any insight anyone can give me into the origin
> of these words and any possible relationship.
>
> Sincerely,
> Bill Schmidt