Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com>]

Yes, I agree with Karl.
pqx refers to "open eyes or ears", namely to see clearly in a mental or
intellectual sense.
ptx is to open, an opening in a general sense.

The fact that these two words share two root letters  does not forcely mean
that they share an ancient common root.
Compare with the English "cat" and "cast": three letters in common... but
quite different in meaning. .

Pere Porta
(Barcelona, Catalonia, Northeastern Spain)

2012/4/13 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
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-- 
Pere Porta