Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

106 D. Pardee / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 99-108
it is syntactically and semantically interchangeable with ʿēd in all its occurrences.
J. Obermann, JBL 70 (1951), pp. 201-7, considered that the y-causative of
Phoenician solved the problem: yp( y)ḥ would be a causative verbal adjective
“who causes to blow out”. Unfortunately for this theory, Ugaritic did not have a
yiphil causative to account for its form ypḥ.
To solve the problem of the y-, the root ypḥ has frequently been cited as a byform
of p(w)ḥ, equivalent in meaning.25 The root is attested in Hebrew only in
the Hithpael stem, only in Jer. iv 31: qôl bat-ṣiyyôn tityappēaḥ “Zion cries aloud”
(no synonymous parallel). This root is very difficult to pin down semantically
because of its unique character in Hebrew and its absence from the cognate
languages.
One further point: in spite of the fact that there is some fluidity in the
roots which mean “to blow” (Arabic attests nfḥ, nfḫ, fwḥ, and fwḫ all in senses
related to blowing or exhaling and apparently cognate to Hebrew p[w]ḥ), we
must nonetheless give heed to Dahood’s observation26 that at Ugarit the one
clear derivation from a root “to blow” is spelled with /ḫ/ (mpḫm “bellows”) as
opposed to the /ḥ/ of ypḥ “witness”. Berger, UF 2 (1970), p. 10, n. 14, in playing
down this fact, was able to cite only Arabic nfḥ/nfḫ, the Akkadian orthography
with /ḫ/ of Ugaritic /ḥ/ in personal names, and Ugaritic ḥln = Akkadian (bīt)
ḫilāni. This is because there is virtually no evidence for a ḥ/ḫ confusion within
Ugaritic.27 And it is indeed within Ugaritic that our quest for the etymology of
ypḥ must begin, for that is where we have the surest attestations of ypḥ “witness”
and the clearest -p-ḫ-/ypḥ differentiation. Unfortunately, those are the
limits of our evidence—we have no cases of -p-ḫ- in forms other than mpḫm
“bellows” and no verbal attestations of a root ypḥ. Hebrew, of course, has lost
the ḥ/ḫ distinction and exhibits only one case of ypḥ as a verb, while Arabic
is ambiguous with nfḥ and nfḫ, fwḥ and fwḫ, but no roots wfḥ or yfḥ (it does
have a rarely attested root yfḫ which means “strike someone on the top of the
head”—of dubious semantic connection with witnessing). If we may judge by
the entries in the various Arabic lexica, we may perhaps posit for fwḥ/nfḥ a
common meaning “pour forth” (used for a pot boiling, a wound bleeding, a
flower diffusing its odor, and breaking wind, among others), and for fwḫ/nfḫ
the meaning “blow” (primarily of wind). What the “original” meaning of the
“original” pḥ/ḫ may have been is even more speculative but may have had to do
25) Kimḥi, Radicum liber, p. 288; Lambert, REJ 57 (1909), p. 280; F. E. König, Historisch-kritisches
Lehrgebäude der hebräischen Sprache, 1 (Leipzig, 1881), p. 504.
26) Biblica 46 (1965), pp. 319-20; Psalms I, p. 169 (cf. n. 3 above).
27) Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook, ch. 5, does not include an interchange between ḥ and ḫ.