Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

>>>>    BTW, we are speaking of the pre-history of Hebrew here - athough the
qal passive seems to be well attested in the Biblical text, the hishtaph'el
was obviously no longer a productive stem by Biblical Hebrew times.

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>>>> Agreed. I see its survival in this one term as a bit of a relic, sort of
like "goodbye" in English. It survived in a fixed form whose origins were
probably lost in the mists of time.

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i suspect there are more remnants of the H$TF(L form in hebrew.i refer to
H$T(BD, H$TKLL, H$TRBB, H$TXRR, etc, though 
i must add three comments here:

1) to save the grammar books these forms were declared pertaining to
four-letter roots at some point. however, this is mere posthumous
rationalization: they represent the same H$TF(L form you are talking 
about here.

2) similarly, $XRR, $KLL, $RBB, $(BD, $RBt, $LHB,  
are nothing but remnants of a canaanite $F(L form, which was 
left out of hebrew grammar. some are modern, like $DRG, and i am not
sure about $(RK.

3) these words are not biblical, as far as i know, and a natural 
conjecture here is that they were borrowed from the arabic. 

but i suspect some of them are mishnaic, and at least $LHBT is 
biblical as well as aramaic, and appears three times in 
the OT, besides the more "normal" LHBH, attesting to some 
remnant use of SF(L in hebrew.

 שַׁלְהֶ֫בֶת noun feminine flame (Aramaic שַׁלְהוֺבִיתָא ) — in ׳לַהֶבֶת שׁ 
Ezekiel 21:3, of
judgment; so שַׁלְהָ֑בֶת Job 15:30; רִשְׁמֵּי אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה Songs 8:6 
i.e. Yahweh-flame =
powerful flame (> JägerBAS i.471 JastrJBL xiii (1894), 111 explains יָֿה here 
as
encl. particle)

nir cohen