Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ishnian" <ishinan AT comcast.net>]



Stewart Felker wrote: Several times in the Hebrew Bible - in Numbers 22 and in Exodus 10 - the phrase עין הארץ is used, usually translated (figuratively) as 'surface of the earth'. Is anyone aware of analogous phrases used elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern literature? I've searched the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary for similar uses of īnu, but there doesn't seem to be any. Of course, פני האדמה might be somewhat of a similar phrase (also, Sumerian ɪɢɪ can mean both 'eye' and 'face'; cf. perhaps Ugaritic ˁn, 'forehead'). Klein mentions the meaning of 'visible surface' for عين‎, but I haven't been able to find anything about this. Is it relevant that, apparently, "the land of Egypt itself was visualized as an eye...called the eye of the earth" (cf. Eberhard Otto, "Auge," LexÄg, I, 559-661) – and that the passages in the HB in which עין הארץ appears all involve Egypt?

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Ishinan : In Arabic: the Earth looked with an eye or with two eyes:  meaning the earth had its herbage sprouting forth.  From the Old Arabic saying : When al-Gabhah (the 10th mansion of the moon)  sets aurorally (about February 11th) the Earth looks with one of its eyes: then, when as-S.arfah (the 12th  mansion of the moon ) sets aurorally (about March 9th ), it looks with both of them. `Ayn also means the choice or best of a thing.  When the text is referring to Egypt, it alludes to the land fertility.

 

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Ishinan Ishibashi