Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

 

Isaac Fried:

1.  You wrote:  “I would hate to spoil such pastoral, cute and naive names given by keen eyed herders to their daughters. So I would leave it at….”

Isaac Fried, do you really think that these three Matriarchs are being called “cattle”?  “Fat calf”, “jumpy young sheep”, and “heavy, pregnant sheep”, which are what you offer below, are not fitting names for these three fine Hebrew Matriarchs.  Rather than being passive and meek, all three are exactly the opposite!  Rebekah wears the pants in the family, and unilaterally prohibits her husband Isaac from giving Isaac’s grand blessing to Isaac’s favorite son Esau.  Leah forces her husband to impregnate her with yet another son by the adroit use of a mandrake her young son Reuben had gathered.  And Rebekah assertively demands that her husband Jacob provide her with sons.  In no way, shape or form are these three Matriarchs passive and meek like “cattle”.  And why would you think their parents would give them such unprepossessing names as that?

Moreover, you’ve totally abandoned your former focus on looking for theophorics in ancient names.

2.  You wrote:  “RIBQAH from the root RBQ, from which we have the עגל מרבק EGEL MARBEQ, 'fat calf?', of 1Sam. 28:24.

MRBQ actually refers to “a stall in which cattle are tied up”, with the root RBQ in turn referring to the “tying up” of animals.  Why would that be a fitting name for Bethuel to give to his only daughter?  And what would such a name tell us about Rebekah?  I myself do not see how those Hebrew words would suggest that Rebekah will “ensnare” a man by her beauty.  Moreover, Rebekah does not “ensnare” Isaac anyway.  Rebekah volunteers to travel all the long way to Canaan from eastern Syria, and Isaac joyfully accepts his previously unseen bride.  As usual with so many personal names in the Patriarchal narratives, John Mckenzie’s “Dictionary of the Bible” says as to the name “Rebekah”/RBQH:  “etymology uncertain”.

More likely is that Bethuel married a Hurrian woman in Bronze Age eastern Syria, who gave their daughter a Hurrian name.  RB is erbe in Hurrian, meaning “a noble”.  -qa is an honorific Hurrian suffix.  -H is a Biblical Hebrew convention for showing that a foreign, non-Semitic name has been Semiticized.  So the Hurrian meaning of RB -Q -H fits Rebekah perfectly:  “an honored noble woman [who has adopted west Semitic-speaking Canaan as her new homeland]”.

As to the west Semitic/Hebrew meaning that Bethuel would appreciate [which I know is the only meaning you’re interested in], consider that the qof/Q that is used in the Hurrian meaning might have to be stretched a little bit for the west Semitic/Hebrew meaning.  -Q sounds quite a bit like -)X.  If that stretch is made, then the meaning becomes apparent.  RB means “great” in Hebrew.  )X means “brother” in Hebrew, and in a proper name means “the divine Brother”, that is, “God”.  [Isaac Fried, you seem to have abandoned your former insistence on looking for theophorics, but I’m still doggedly following your original advice.]  -H is obviously the Hebrew feminine ending for a woman’s name.  So if -Q can be stretched a bit to be viewed here as representing -)X in Hebrew [so that there will be a theophoric], then the meaning of the name RB -Q -H : RB -)X -H is:  “Woman [who knows and asserts that] God Is Great”.

That’s a much better west Semitic/Hebrew meaning for the name “Rebekah” than “fat calf”.  And besides, neither RBQ nor MRBQ means “fat calf” anyway, but rather refer in Hebrew to the “tying up” of an animal.

3.  You wrote:  “RAXEL, like רגל RAGEL, a jumpy young sheep.”

At Psalm 15: 3, KJV translates RGL as:  “backbiteth”.  What a horrible name for lovely Rachel!  Rachel’s name is not RGL, and it’s not RXL as a single word.  Rather, it’s RX -L, where the final lamed is a theophoric:  )L.  Rachel is not a “backbiter”!

4.  You wrote:  “LEA, a heavy (pregnant?) sheep. Compare Is. 40:11.  כרעה עדרו ירעה בזרעו יקבץ טלאים ובחיקו ישא עלות ינהל.  KJV:  ‘He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.’ ”

Perhaps I misunderstand what you’re saying here.  As I note in my response to Nir Cohen’s post, you seem to be trying to tie L)H/“Leah” to (WL, meaning a “ewe” or “cow” that is nursing.  But (WL is not at all like L)H as to the Hebrew letters involved.  [However, perhaps I have completely misunderstood you.]

Much better is to analyze the name “Leah” as follows:  L)H : L-)H : L -)X.  Then we’ve got our theophoric, and Leah has the following fine Hebrew etymology and meaning of her name:  “Belonging to God”.

5.  You wrote:  “I find it still noteworthy that there is an L in RAXEL, LEA, ZILPA and BILHAH.”

Yet your explanations above involve nary a single theophoric.

6.  You wrote:  “The great challenge is the name נפתלי NAPTALIY.”

Why don’t you think that the stated etymology at Genesis 30: 8 makes sense?

7.  I myself don’t see any of the Matriarchs as bearing names that signify “cattle”.  One could not find a group of women who are less docile and meek than the revered Hebrew Matriarchs, who instead are, to their credit, aggressive and assertive to a fault.  With the Matriarchs’ names not being attested outside of the Bible in west Semitic, surely these Biblical names must have a grander meaning than “cattle”.

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois