Re: Biblical Hebrew

On 15 August, John Cowan wrote:

> The concepts "womb", "bowels", and "compassion" seem to
> be clearly connected.
> There are several biblical references to offspring being born from one's
> bowels (Gen. 15:4 and 25:23, e.g.), and to the bowels as the organ of
> compassion:
    True.

>
>         Genesis 43:30 And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did
>         yearn upon his
>         brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his
>         chamber, and wept there.
>
     In the Hebrew original of this verse, the word is |raxamav|
from the root r-x-m, which is connected with "womb" and "compassion".
"Bowels", OTOH, is |me'ayim| (' = ayin) and is not found in this verse.
    A better example would be Jeremiah chap. 31, verse 20 at the end of the
verse. |me'ay|, meaning "bowels" and |raxem|, meaning compassion, are
found next to each other. Roughly translated as:

 " ... my bowels yearn for him, I will surely have compassion upon him..."

Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a

A word is an awesome thing.

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