Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

   David,

  You wrote:

<Although my Arabic dictionary does not
 have yehab..>

   There was a shift from Waw in Proto- Semitic
 to a Y in NW Semitic languages.

    Therefore when looking for an Arabic lexical
 equivalent for an initial Hebrew Yud in a biblical
 root, one needs to the check the Arabic letter W.

   Just take a look at listings for the letter
 Waw in a biblical  Hebrew Concordance:
practically none. Same in Phoenician. 

   In this case there is indeed a root WHB
 in Arabic which means "give, grant" etc.
 One of he noun derivations is 'hibat' - 
"gift, present". Similar meaning, though
 spelled with a Y in ancient Aramaic,
 is attested many centuries before
 Talmudic time. Obviously I just sum up here.

  BTW, the Wahabi movement sponsored by  Saudi
 Arabia takes its name from this root.

 The Aramaic יהביך you cited from Rosh
 Hashana 26b was translated long ago into 
Hebrew as 'burden' ( "masa" ) with a Sin ).
 

 Be that as it may, there has been a long-
time scholarly consensus about the
meaning of most occurrences of the
 biblical root YHB. 
 
 Uri Hurwitz 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I found this quote in the Talmud - Mas. Rosh HaShana 26b

לא הוו ידעי רבנן מאי השלך על הי יהבך והוא יכלכלך 
אמר רבה בר בר חנה
יומא חד הוה אזלינא בהדי ההוא טייעא הוה דרינא טונא ואמר לי שקול יהביך ושדי 
אגלאי

This is translated as : "The Rabbis didn't know what was meant by 'Cast upon 
the Lord thy yehab, and he shall sustain thee.'  Rabbah  b Bar Hanah said: 
"One day I was travelling with an Arab (a specific Arab tribe) and he was 
carrying a load (טונא) and he said to me, 'Lift up your yehab and put it on 
(one of) the camels.'

Although my Arabic dictionary does not have yehab, the root HB has these 
related meanings: get in motion, start moving, depart, set out, approach, 
attack, tackle, embark, 
begin, start doing something, rush / fly , rise, get up, revolt, rebel, blow, 
rage (storm), waft, drift; (related nouns >) gust, breeze, strong wind, gale.

It seems these can be re-ordered roughly as follows:  
waft, drift, blow, rage (storm), rush, fly > 

rise (= lift up) > get moving 
rise (= lift up) > revolt, rebel, tackle, attack

It is possible that yehab = burden / load is related in that it means 
"something that is lifted up"

הבה in Hebrew means "to give forth (of oneself), give, contribute"
הבב in Syriac means "to bloom, blossom, flourish, glitter, be showy"

Perhaps, the Arabic also literally means "to give forth" in that "waft, 
drift, blow, rage (storm), rush, fly" are ways of "giving forth."

Shavua Tov,
David Kolinsky 
Monterey CA


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Previous message: [b-hebrew] Hava Nagila 
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More information about the