The word kaf-samekh-aleph translated as "full moon" also occurs in Proverbs 7:20.
Giving the aleph its ancient CHS-sound and treating kaf-samekh as the equivalent of het which had an X = KS-sound at the time of contact with the Romans but which earlier had a W-sound, this word seems to be cognate with the Germanic precursor of English "wax" for a moon that is growing larger. The Online Etymological Dictionary gives wax (v.) <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=wax> <http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=wax>"grow bigger or greater," O.E. weaxan "to increase, grow" (class VII strong verb; past tense weox, pp. weaxen), from P.Gmc. *wakhsan (cf. O.S., O.H.G. wahsan, O.N. vaxa, O.Fris. waxa, Du. wassen, Ger. wachsen, Goth. wahsjan "to grow, increase"), from PIE *wegs- (cf. Skt. vaksayati "cause to grow," Gk. auxein "to increase"), extended form of base *aug- "to increase" (see augment<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=augment>). Strong conjugation archaic after 14c. This raises the question: why is yod-resh-het YaRa:akH, the standard word for moon, not part of the Hebrew expression? I think the answer is because yod-resh-het has the same "growing" semantics and would therefore be redundant. The yod is often parallel to a G via Germanic, a K via Greek, and a hard C or CR via Latin. Yod-resh-het = moon is parallel to GRoW via Germanic and AncLatin KReX which metathesized to cresc- from which we get increase, decrease, crescendo (grow louder), crescent (moon-shaped) and croissant (a moon-shaped pastry). The current Hebrew term for a growing (gibbous) moon is YaRa:akH GaVNooNi. [Compare the Yiddish cognate "gebenet" = humpback]. Because this pat expression sounds like YaRoQ G'ViNah, we say "the moon is made of green cheese". Ciao, Izzy
