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Re: OT Biblical Hebrew names Re: A question and introduction

From:Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 11, 2002, 19:58
On Tue, 11 Jun 2002 13:30:05 -0500 Peter Clark <peter-clark@...>
writes:
> Sometimes the names can be potentially important; for > instance, Gideon's son. > In Judges 8, the Israelites want to make Gideon king, but he > refuses. > However, he has a son, whom he names Abimelech, or, "My father is > king." > Hmm... Unfortunately, there's no indication by the text that > "Abimelech" was > an inappropriate name. The only other Abimelechs mentioned are two > kings of > Gerar (Gn. 20:1-18 and Gn. 26:1-33), a superscription to Ps. 34 in > which the > name Abimelech is given to Achish king of Gath, and a priest > mentioned in 1 > Ch. 18:16, but this last one may be a scribal error for Ahimelech > ("my > brother is king") (cf. 2 Sa. 8:17). So, in sum, there's no > indication that > Gideon named his son deliberately "My father is king," no more than > we might > name a child Michael ("Who is like God?"). Still, considering that > the text > takes a dim view of Gideon's later years, it may be that the name > gives some > indication as to Gideon's leanings. > :Peter
- I'm pretty sure that the prefix |avi-| in names refers to God. I remember reading a commentary on the names of the Chieftains of the Tribes (the beginning of the Book of Numbers) that put forth the (sensical) position that names with |av| "father", as well as |ahh| "brother (or 'kinsman' as it translated it)" refer to God, just like the names with |el|, various shortened forms of the tetragrammaton, and |tzur| do. According to that interpretation, the name |avimelekh| means "God is king", which would make a good name for someone who refused the kingship to name his son. Gid`on could have been saying "you don't need a king, you've already got God" or something like that. And then of course there's the mysterious name |eliyahu| (Elijah), which tautologically means "God is God"... ObConlang: the Rokbeigalm don't have names like this. The Judajca-speakers, on the other hand, most probably do. -Stephen (Steg) "eili`alhhein'eil is a cool name."

Replies

Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Wesley Parish <wes.parish@...>