Dear Peter:Well, etymology is quite an exact science concerning forms of words in cognate languages, though a poor guide to meaning. And Arabic is rather close to Hebrew. In Arabic there are two separate words, obviously from different root consonants, ghulaam (with gheyn) = boy and `aalam (with `eyn) = world. It is well known that Arabic gheyn and `eyn both correspond to Hebrew `ayin. It doesn't take much of a leap to conclude that Hebrew `elem/`alma corresponds ghulaam, and that `olam corresponds to `aalam. But you don't have to accept this evidence if you don't want to. Just accept that there is even less evidence, i.e. none at all, for most of your speculations.
I am cognisant of that argument, but I deliberately did not mention it.
When I already question how applicable a contemporary cognate language is to
the understanding of a Biblical Hebrew word, even question the use of
Mishnaic Hebrew at times because languages change, how authoritative should I
consider a cognate language first written over a thousand years later? If
your only evidence is Arabic (which was the case at the time of Gesenius,
even BDB) when the evidence internal to Tanakh and Biblical Hebrew indicate
otherwise, it makes your argument even more presuppositionally biased and
speculative than my admittedly speculated definition I proposed for Proverbs
30:19.
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