The editor of Genesis new very well what עשו means. He even
resorted to
a little sly visual obfuscation by writing ayin for aleph, and waw
for bet,
to turn the alien אשאב or אישאב into עשו, a clever
spelling modification to
take both the eye and the mind away from idols and into thinking
about עשב 'grass'.
The theophoric איש I$ is very common, as in ישמעאל I$MAEL,
שמעון
$IMON, אכיש AKIY$, כמוש KMO$ (KMO-I$?), and many more.
Likewise the theophoric אב AB.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On Aug 28, 2013, at 10:13 AM, [email protected] wrote:
“Esau. There is an odd displacement of etymology in the naming
sentence [Genesis 25: 25], perhaps because the writer was not sure
what ‘Esau’ actually meant.” Robert Alter,
“Genesis” (1996), p. 127.
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
