Jim, a few questions, if I may: 1. How on earth do you know that Adamah of Josh 19:36 was "a fairly big city" while Adami Hanekeb was a "small town"?
2. For that matter, how do you know that Adami Hanekeb was a town at all? The context in which it appears, that of border descriptions, often mentions topographical object other than towns. That very same verse mentions "the Jordan" - the river. 3. Assuming that "neqeb" here refers to a "hole" or a "breach", perhaps a pass of some kind, I would understand "Adami hanekeb" as "the red (or "earth") of the breach". Something like "Ma'aleh Adumim" in Josh 15 - the red ascent. 4. In general, analyzing place-names according to standard biblical Hebrew grammar is very iffy. Unlike prose, in which the author at least is able to carefully choose every phase, place-names are "facts on the ground", and who knows what local dialect produced this or that form in what period? Yigal Levin -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 12:47 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [b-hebrew] Plural Construct: Adam, Adamah, Adami Plural Construct: Adam, Adamah, Adami This thread will not examine any geographical place names in the Pentateuch, but rather will look at certain geographical place names in Joshua [with an occasional reference to other books in the Bible, but never to the Pentateuch]. There are three cities in Canaan whose basic name is some form of Adam: Adam, Adamah, Adami. Although )DM is usually a verb or adjective meaning “to be red” or “red”, it occasionally seems to be a masculine noun, perhaps meaning “something that is red”. With a feminine ending, )DMH means “earth”. Only one of these three city names uses plural construct. The focus of this thread is analyzing what construct plural means when a proper name [as opposed to a common word] is in construct plural form in a geographical place name. 1. Adam: )DM, at Joshua 3: 16 This city is located in the Jordan River Valley, south of the Jezreel Valley, near Zaretan. It is the only city named Adam in Canaan south of Galilee. Thus there is no reason to use the construct format for this city, for there was no other city named Adam in the neighborhood. 2. Adamah: )DMH, at Joshua 19: 36 In eastern Lower Galilee there was a fairly big city whose name has a feminine ending: Adamah/)DMH. No construct form is used here, but construct is used for the town with a somewhat similar name located a few miles south of Adamah. [The common word )DMH has the feminine plural form of )DMWT at Psalms 49: 11.] 3. Adami Nekeb: )DMY H-NQB, at Joshua 19: 33 The original name of this small town is not completely clear. It may have originally been just Adam/)DM, and it may have been known by various names later. Here, however, we will focus solely on the name as it appears at Joshua 19: 33: )DMY H-NQB. I see )DMY as being masculine construct plural. )DM probably means “ something red” and may simply be the masculine form of )DMH, meaning “(red) earth” . In part because we would not expect to see “earths” as a common word in the plural, I see the word/name in construct plural here at Joshua 19: 33 as being primarily a proper name, whose ultra-literal meaning is “Adams of”. That then raises the issue of Hebrew grammar that I wish to explore on this thread. When a proper name is in construct plural form in a geographical place name, what does that construct plural form mean? I see )DMY H-NQB as meaning “[concerning the two] Adams [in eastern Lower Galilee, the o-n-e that is] of the Nekeb”. The plural aspect of the plural construct form means that there are two Adams in the neighborhood. The word/name not in construct form then specifies which o-n-e of these two Adams is being referenced here. I erred previously in thinking that )DMY H-NQB might mean “two Adams, both of which are associated with Nekeb”. No, there are not two Adams associated with Nekeb. Only one Adam is associated with Nekeb. But the plural aspect of the plural construct form here is telling us one additional item of information: there is a second Adam in the neighborhood. An author had the option of referring either to )DM H-NQB or )DMY H-NQB, using either singular or plural construct. In both cases, the same city in eastern Lower Galilee was being referenced. But the difference is that if plural construct is used, that is giving us one additional piece of information: there was another city named Adam [or Adamah] in the neighborhood. Thus the rule I propose is that if a proper name appears in construct plural form in a geographical place name, that means that there are at least two places with that same basic proper name in the neighborhood, yet only o-n-e of such two places is being referenced in the particular case, as specified by the word/name that is not in construct form. Different from this are those cases where the word in construct plural form is primarily a common word, rather than being primarily a proper name. Thus XWT Y)YR at Joshua 13: 30 has a common word in construct plural. As such, the reference is to the “towns of Jair”, where “towns of”/XWT is primarily a common word, not a proper name, and multiple towns are indeed being referenced here. Note also )$DWT H-PCGH at Joshua 12: 3, where Pisgah is a well-known proper name, and )$DWT is a common word in the plural meaning “slopes” . The reference is to the various slopes [in the plural] of Pisgah. But by sharp contrast, when the word/name in construct plural form in a geographical place name is a proper name, the construct plural form of such proper name means that (i) there is another place with a similar name in the neighborhood, but that (ii) only o-n-e place is being referenced in the particular instance, as specified by the word not in construct form. Yes, in some cases it will be difficult to distinguish whether the word/name in construct form is a common word or a proper name, but note that a great deal is riding on such distinction if, as I see it, construct plural format functions somewhat differently in these two situations. Exhibit A for my view is )DMY H-NQB at Joshua 19: 33. )DMY is masculine construct plural, yet only o-n-e city is being referenced, with the plural aspect of the construct plural form of )DM as a proper name meaning that there is another city named Adam/Adamah in the neighborhood. Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
