Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stewart Felker <stewart.felker AT gmail.com>]

Klein, in his etymological dictionary of Hebrew, says that כרך, 'wrap around, surround' is "properly a shortened form of base כרר" ('to move back and forth, turn'). But if this is true, what exactly is it shortened FROM? To the best of my understanding, כרר is probably an extension of biradical כר...and so the pilpel would be כרכר - for example וְדָוִד מְכַרְכֵּר, "and David is dancing (whirling)" (there's also Ugaritic krkr 'to twist, twiddle', Arabic karkara, 'he repeated').

Is this what he means?

And this would be a pretty atypical process, right? But is there any chance that there's somewhat of a similar case with Ugaritic kbkb, כוכב, 'star' - cf. Akkadian kabābu 'to roast, burn'? (Klein refers to an Akkadian ku'ū 'to roast', but the closest I've found to this is a kawûm (II) (kamû?), 'to burn'.)

Stewart Felker
University of Memphis