John,
Yes, agreed that השתחוה is a biblical form of
Istaf'ala, as is its forerunner in Ugaritic. I am
familiar of the Arabic Af'ala , the equivalent of
the Hebrerw Hif'il, but what is "if'alla" you mention?
The problem with deriving Hishtahawa from the
root Shin Het Heh is that the Waw is not found
in the latter.
Incidentally, somebody claimed that the root
Het Waw He root does not exist in the HB --
see Job 19:3 and other occurrences.
Uri Hurwitz Wilmington Vt
kalbun hayyun kahyrun min asadin maytin
( the Arabic version of Eccl. 9:4)
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Petr, the difference between the root שחה and השתחוה is an extension by
gemation of the last letter, which does otherwise occur in, say, the Arabic
if'alla and if'ālla. But alhough you and I are both certain this is a
hištaph'el, that's not how it was understood as in Biblical times.
Karl, the שחה forms you are talking about are back-formations from השתחוה as it
was no longer seen as being a hišaph'el from חוה but a hithpa'lel from שחה.
Note that the words are both few and late in date. The medieval Jewish
grammarians who later classified Hebrew grammar on the model of Arabic
grammatical models would have been aware of both the Arabic if'alla and the
istaf'ala forms and they seem to have preferred the former option. Today we
have a clearer picture of the structure of Semitic languages than they could
have had then, and can see the development of the word.
John Leake
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