Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

The editor of Genesis new very well what עשו means. He even resorted to 

a little sly visual obfuscation by writing ayin for aleph, and waw for bet, 

to turn the alien אשאב or אישאב into עשו, a clever spelling modification to 

take both the eye and the mind away from idols and into thinking about עשב 'grass'. 

The theophoric איש I$ is very common, as in ישמעאל I$MAEL, שמעון 

$IMON, אכיש AKIY$, כמוש KMO$ (KMO-I$?), and many more.

Likewise the theophoric אב AB.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Aug 28, 2013, at 10:13 AM, JimStinehart AT aol.com wrote:

“Esau. There is an odd displacement of etymology in the naming sentence [Genesis 25: 25], perhaps because the writer was not sure what ‘Esau’ actually meant.”  Robert Alter, “Genesis” (1996), p. 127.