Scientific
Etymology vs. Biblical Name Explanations
One should make a clear-cut
distinction between linguistic etymology and the name explanations provided by
the biblical texts. While an etymologist would race the origin of biblical
names in the light of parallels in other cultures and would analyze them in
accordance with the rules of dynamic language formation, the biblical writers,
in most cases, provide explanations which are based upon the assumption that
that name is unique and that it was given in accordance with a specific
occasion. This is why the name explanations in the Bible are far more pliable
both in their morphological and in their semantic rules. The biblical writers
were committed to literary considerations rather than to linguistic ones. Most
scholars who have addressed themselves to the issue have pointed out that the explanations
attached to the names of Babel and Moses are a demonstration of how far the
biblical narrator may exploit his freedom of creativity, for as is well known,
these are not Hebrew names. Nevertheless they are dealt with as though they
were (see Gen 11:9; Ex 2:10), and a correlation between them and certain
incidents is established.
The explanation for “Babel” must draw
our attention to another mode of poetic license taken by the biblical authors:
the introduction of changes in form, or in the order of letters, as between a name
and the explanation provided for it. When bbl (בבל) is glossed in terms
of bll (בלל) only a small change is involved, the doubling of the l
instead of the b, but more complicated instances can be adduced. When
Leah calls her son Reuben (r’wbn – ראובן) because the Lord “has looked
upon my affliction” (r’h . . .b-‘nyy
– ראה . . . בעניי [Gen 29:32]; . . .),
the first syllable of the name, r’w is associated with the verb r’h (ראה),
“to look,” while the second syllable, bn, is explained through the addition
of several letters and the forming of the word b-‘nyy.
Such a difference between the letters forming a name and the explanation for it
can be noted for “Abraham” (Gen 17:4-5) – ‘brhm (אברהם) – for it is
explicated in terms of ‘bhmwn gwym (אב המון כוים– father of
a multitude of nations). The word ab (father) exploits the first
syllable of the name; the second syllable, the letter r, does not figure
in the explanation at all; and the third, hm, is interpreted as hmwn
(multitude), which involves the adding on of two more letters to make up the
word. These and other instances of change in grammatical form or the dropping
or taking on of letters when names are to be explained indicate that a flexible
“literary” etymology is at work which takes no account of linguistic
differences between a name and the explanation proposed for it.
The liberty taken by the biblical authors
in these explanations has been termed by some scholars “folk etymology.” Such a
definition misses the point; the explanations function as a literary device and
are designed to enrich the literary unit. What we see here is by no means a
popular and shallow interpretation based upon a lack of knowledge, but rather a
deliberate deviation from the linguistic rules and norms of the time applied as
a technique by subtle narrators in order to make a point.
Widespread as the recognition is in older
exegesis and modern scholarship as to the liberty assumed by the biblical
writers in their explanations, it is not shared by all. Some ancient commentators
and modern scholars are worried by a lack of harmony between the structure of a
particular name and its attached explanation, and modern scholars would even
settle the difficulties by emending the text. The explanation appended to Samuel’s
name (1 Sam 1:20), for instance, seems to some scholars to fit Saul better.
Hence they suggest that at an early stage the explanation was indeed attached
to Saul, and that only at a later stage it was transferred to Samuel in fact,
there is no need to regard this as a problem at all, since the biblical norms
in this area are much more flexible than any that have been defined by modern
linguists. (Moshe Garsiel, Biblical Names:
Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns [trans. Phyllis
Hackett; Jerusalem: Bar-Ilan University, 1991], 17-19)
