Yes, I agree with Karl. pqx refers to "open eyes or ears", namely to see clearly in a mental or intellectual sense. ptx is to open, an opening in a general sense.
The fact that these two words share two root letters does not forcely mean that they share an ancient common root. Compare with the English "cat" and "cast": three letters in common... but quite different in meaning. . Pere Porta (Barcelona, Catalonia, Northeastern Spain) 2012/4/13 K Randolph <[email protected]> > Bill: > > While I list the two terms as synonyms in my dictionary, they have > distinctly different meanings as listed below. > > פקח to open in the sense of giving vision, hearing > > פתח to open, the basic sense is to open a hole, opening, door ⇒ to dig or > engrave a hole, ditch, groove as in writing, furrow in field, carving in > relief on a wall or door > As for Gesenius, he is wrong in so many places that I no longer take > anything he wrote at face value. In fact, my dictionary started out as > corrections in the margins of his dictionary as I read Tanakh through over > and over again. > > As for etymology, without clear examples to guide us, is mere speculation > with a greater chance of being wrong than right. > > Karl W. Randolph. > > On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 3:17 AM, Bill <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Greetings! > > > > I was just wondering if anybody could tell me whether the Hebrew > > verbs peqach and petah 'to open' are today considered as cognate as > > Gesenius claimed they are in his lexicon, and if so, what the > > original root could have been. > > > > Thanks very much for any insight anyone can give me into the origin > > of these words and any possible relationship. > > > > Sincerely, > > Bill Schmidt > _______________________________________________ > b-hebrew mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew > -- Pere Porta _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
