Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

1) i consider XWG as a word which, in BH, meant originally "to draw 
a circle, to circle around" in the sense used e.g. in MXWGH (compass). 
XG (festivity, both hebrew and arabic) was probably related to some circle
rites, as still evident in the moslim context.

however, in cosmogonic connotations i prefer to translate XG/XWG as an
unspecified symbolic "contour" with no clear geometric characterization. 
i assume that the biblical writer had no eye for geometry and was more
interested in deriving a religeous-philosophical notion. now, "contour" 
could equally be "circle" or "sphere".

2) the same applies to KNP. while the rose of winds is very old, its biblical
use is a non-geometric abstraction, with nothing to do with axes or with the
number 4. it just means "everywhere", just as biblical seven means "plenty",
chinese eight means completeness, etc. in this symbolic level, the use of
"4 winds" does not create any geometric contradiction with the idea of
circularity.

3) i am not sure i agree with david's association of KNF primarily with KNS 
and similars (the thematic connection is unclear) and would like to 
suggest HNP (lift), NPNP (wave, shake) or NPH (sieve, sift) and even (NF
(branch), SNYP (chapter, branch). and, more remotely, with (P=fly.

namely, i suggest that here similarity should be based on the two LAST radical
letters, and especially the third, rather than the two first ones. 

nir cohen

De: David Kolinsky <hadeesh AT sbcglobal.net>
Para: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Data: Thu, 23 Aug 2012 08:59:24 -0700 (PDT)
Assunto: [b-hebrew] חוג circle / sphere
George,

Not that I want to agree or disagree on the Circle / Sphere issue.  But I did
want to give the following input:

KNP (wing) is related to KNS (to enter), KNN (to wind around), KN\ (to humble,
oppress), and Kinereth which all mean "to draw inward" and does not 
necessarily
imply edge.

QTsH (end) comes from the word QTsTs meaning "to cut off" and does imply
"edge".  But QTsTs comes from QTsH whose paal verb means "to scrape (back)" a
verb derived from QWTs "to loathe" literally meaning "to retract away from."

Thanks,
David Kolinsky
Monterey, CA