Ssade Can Be Emphatic Sin
As noted in my prior post, in early Biblical Hebrew ssade/C can be
emphatic sin. The most obvious example of that is that the name “Isaac” and
the
verb “to laugh” start out in the Bible being spelled with ssade/C, but in
late books in the Bible, both are instead spelled with a sin/%.
Here’s another indication that ssade could be emphatic sin. In a post on
ANE-2 on December 26, 2006, Yitzhak Sapir noted: “Ezra 4:1 calls the
"elite (Heb: s'ry [%RY]) of Judah and Benjamin" as "Enemies (Heb: cry [CRY])
of
Judah and Benjamin". In other words, a Sin becomes a Sade. It is clear
that mockery is involved, but what is also quite impressive is that the two
letters hark back to very similar phonemes in Proto-Semitic.”
Now consider a third example of this same phenomenon. II Samuel 8: 3 has
LH%YB with a sin/% (or shin), as opposed to I Chronicles 18: 3, which has
LYCYB with a ssade/C.
So there is a fair amount of Biblical evidence that ssade could be
emphatic sin, with ssade/C having a sound quite similar to sin/%. That’s a
key
part of the basis for comments one often sees like the following:
“The languages of the Semitic family share a number of features. One of
them is phonetic, involving: (a) the recognition of emphatic forms for
some consonants -- for example, the Hebrew ssade being the emphatic form of
the sin or samekh….” Kamal Suleiman Salibi, The Historicity of Biblical
Israel (1998), p, 10.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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In early Biblical Hebrew, ssade/C canbe emphatic sin.
Consider in this regard the Hebrew verb“to laugh” and the name “Isaac”.
InGenesis, they’re both spelled with ssade/C: CXQ and YCXQ. [The west
Semiticmeaning of “Isaac” is “He Laughs”, but since his mother’s birth name is
notSemitic, his own name will have as its more profound meaning its
non-Semiticmeaning: “He Sits Next to God”.]
But in late books in the Bible, “helaughs” and “Isaac” are spelled not with a
ssade/C, but rather with a sin/%: %XQ and Y%XQ.
Here are some Biblical cites. “[He] laughed”, spelled YCXQ with a ssade/C,is
at Genesis 17: 17. The name “Isaac”is likewise spelled YCXQ with a ssade/C two
verses later at Genesis 17:19. By contrast, “[man is] laughed” isspelled %XWQ
with a sin/% [not a ssade/C] at Job 12: 4, and “Isaac” is spelledY%XQ with a
sin/% [not a ssade/C] at Amos 7: 9.
That indicates that in early BiblicalHebrew, ssade could be an emphatic sin,
having a sound quite similar to sin.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Ilinois
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