Subject: [b-hebrew] Hebrew "PLG"----- was ---> Gen 10:25 dividing the earth
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:07:00 -0600
ISHINAN: I believe the sense of "ploughing" (and not dividing) the earth is
a more suitable definition for the Hebrew term "plg" in (Gen 10:25). This
would render the following verse as follows:
25 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one Peleg; for in his days
was the earth ploughed .......
My proposal for this new definition is based on the following Semitic
comparative method .
You may click the following URL to view the comparative method between
Hebrew and Arabic . Attached is a JPG comparing the various definitions of
plg/flg in both languages.
While the proto-Semitic * plg indeed has a primary sense of divide/split, it
also means to plough the land for sowing (cf. Arabic flg ). In addition the
term in question, apparently, has been borrowed into the Germanic P.Gmc.
*plogo-
In Ælfric's Colloquy the ploughman says : lce dæg ic sceal erian fulne æcer
oððe máre. Pleuch a quantity of land for caring for which one plough
suffices, Jamieson's Dict.), the word sulh being used to denote the
implement :-- Ic hit (property) ágnian wille tó ágenre hte, ðæt ðæt ic
hæbbe, and nfre ðé myntan ne plot ne plóh, ne turf ne toft, ne furh ne
fótml, L. O.; Th. i. 184, 6. [Icel. plógr; m. a plough; plógs-land an acre:
O. H. Ger. pfluoc aratrum.] (E. plog, ploh cf. O.N. plogr "plow"), (cf.
O.Fris. ploch, M.L.G. ploch, M.Du. ploech, O.H.G. pfluog).
I suspect that the German term was borrowed from Hebrew itself, via a
translation of the Bible. A fact that strongly suggests that originally
"plg" was correctly interpreted as "plough" rather than "divide".
Further, based on the Semitic examples cited above, the present
Indo-European's conjecture of a Rhaetian origin for the term "plough" is
untenable.
YIGAL LEVIN: The way I (and I think most people) read the explanation of the
name "Peleg" is as a reference to the Tower of Babel story in Gen. 11:1-9.
And just as in verse 1 there, "all the earth" refers to the human
inhabitants of the earth, not the planet itself, I assume that this is what
10:25 means as well. Does it also refer to the earth being divided in other
ways, such as into continents and habitation zones? I don't see it in the
text, but who knows?
Doug, any translation is necessarily an interpretation, as is any reading.
Both Gen. 10:25 and 11:1 have "ha'arec", which literally means "the earth"
or "the land". As you write, 11:1 is specifically about the people of the
earth having one tongue. 10:25 simply explains Peleg's name by saying "in
his day the earth was divided". The logical inference is to 11:1-9, but if
you want to think that it refers to some other division of the earth, there
is no way I can prove that it does not.
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DOUG BELOT: Perhaps i should begin by an apology for dashing in where angels
fear to tread , I love your emails back and forth about all sorts of areas
of Hebrew, sometimes that have quite a bit of value for me, I am sure they
are valuable to you all
Now my query is Hebrew language related in that I want to know , if
possible, does Gen 10:25 when speaking of dividing the earth actually mean
what it says , and thus explaining the different languages world wide , and
the different animals , Kangaroo , in Aus ' Zebra in Africa , etc.
Did the existing "earth" as a round ball divide into different areas , can
we safely believe that this is what is written and thus this is what it is
meant to be from what is written here in Gen 10:25 , or will your ability to
rip it into segments of constanants make this implausible.:
[b-hebrew] Hebrew "PLG"----- was ---> Gen 10:25 dividing the earth,
Ishinan, 02/21/2010