Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

the middle Y in many semitic names, when used to fuse together two
separate words, such as AX-Y-RM etc, should be interpreted firstly
as a phonetic process, and only secondly as a grammatical process.
the fact is that phonetically the lack of middle vowel may be 
inconvenient, viz. AX-RM, and Y is the obvious solution. this may 
create a dual interpretation of the name which, i assume, was not
considered a problem at the time, when "grammar" was yet to be invented. 
once the innovation was introduced, it became a trend and, subsequently, 
the dual interpretation became fashionable. 

grammatically, it is assumed that in combinations such as )LY)B,
)BYXYL, )BY(ZR, MLKYZDK, the first part seems to refer to god, and 
it makes sense to interpret it as "my god/my father/my king" etc.
in case of AXY it might still refer to god as AXY (a general term of
familiarity/friendship) or may be referring to a real brother, an 
associate, a friend etc. here, duality may be be more of a problem, 
as in AXYQM, AXYTPL, AXYRM. 

jim, the case of ABRM/ABRHM is indeed unique and probably debated to 
exhaustion in the literature. we may assume the original 
AB-RM referred to god as father, while in the biblical re-interpretation 
AB-RHM refers to the patriarch as father. if so, the added H was intended
somehow to indicate exactly this change, being presumably a sign of SMIXUT.
though i imagine there are several "explanations".

but we may equally conjecture that ABRHM was the original and the rest is
a story constructed around the original name, which was already enygmatic
when genesis was written. 

the fact that ABYRM was NOT contemplated in genesis may be another 
indicator for the book's antiquity (??).

...covered by the dust of history.

nir cohen