The following comes from:
Dictionary of Proper Names and
Foreign Words in the Book of Mormon,
ed. Stephen D. Ricks, Paul Y. Hoskisson, Robert F. Smith, and John Gee (Orem,
Utah: Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2022)
Antion
The
term ANTION as the designation for a monetary unit could be indigenous (ANTION
may be compared with the Quiché Maya term net, “inheritance [volume or
area measure]”) If an ancient Near Eastern etymology does apply, ANTION
could be Egyptian in origin. For example, it might be derived from the ancient
Egyptian participle int, “bringing; buying,” as short for the older
phrase nt r isw, and later int r db3; compare int m,
“to sell” . . . with a
Hebrew/Semitic masculine nominal suffix -ôn/-ōn (Noth, Die Israelitischen
Personennamen, 56). One may compare the Egyptian roots inw (ini), “produce;
tribune; gifts; dues (o be paid,”) and so forth (Faulkner, Concise
Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, 2). There was at that time in Egypt no
coinage for money, but goods were equated with the weights of copper, silver,
and gold (Peet, “Egyptian Words for ‘Money,’ ‘Buy’, and ‘Sell,” 122-24; cf.
Kitchen, Ancient Orient and the Old Testament, 156n.11). One may compare
the PN Antionah as the metonymous “Money-man; Gold-guy; Mr. Gold,” and Antionum
likewise as “Money-city; Gold-land,” while the Anti-ONnti of silver may be a
closely related term.
Another
connection with gold can be found in the Egyptian word ‘nty(wy), “he of
the claws” (also read Nmty), the name of a falcon-god shown riding in a
boat (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, Sign-List G7, citing Gardiner’s Ancient
Egyptian Onomastica, index, p. 317). In the New Kingdom tale of “The
contendings of Horus and Seth,” this is the name of the ferryman who greedily
accepts a gold signet-ring from Isis as a bridge to ferry her to the island
where the Ennead is meeting. The Ennead punishes him severely for that, and he
forswears gold from that time forth (Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature,
2:217-18).It is also used as the birth-name of King Merenre of the Sixth
Dynasty, ‘tny-m-s3.f, “Anty-is-his-protection” (Clayton, Chronicle of
the Pharaohs, 64). . . . One may also note the Egyptian ‘ntyw, “myrrh”
(Faulkner, Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, 44) with the Semitic nominal
suffix -on added. (pp. 52-53)
Ezrom
the
Lehite noun for a silver measure, EZROM, and the disparately spelled
Jaredite PN Esrom must be taken to have separate etymologies. The best
suggestion for the origin of the Lehite noun EZROM is that it is from
the Hebrew ḥeṣrōm, “enclosed, bound together, surrounded,” and so forth
(cf. Jeremiah 1:17; Job 30:18; 38:3) from the root √ḥṣr with the suffix -ōm.
One may compare the similar etymology of ephrah from the Hebrew root √’pp, “to
surround.”
Other
possibilities include the Hebrew roots √’zr, “to help;” or “to gird, equip”; √’zr,
“to surround with a wall; gird,” and perhaps √’ṣr or, with a prosthetic ‘aleph,
the Hebrew root √zrm. One may compare the Hebrew seal PN ‘zr (Nibley, Since
Cumorah, 195), suggesting its possible link to biblical PN Ezra. (pp.
111-12)
Leah
The
Lehite term LEAH refers to the smallest unit of Nephite monetary
measure. The word may derive from the Hebrew root √l’h, “to be weak, weary,”
though its opposite meaning, “to be strong, capable,” has also been proposed
(Koehler and Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, s.v. l’h;
the eminent German Semitist Theodor Nöldeke wrote an extensive study on roots
having opposite meanings in the Semitic languages, “Wörter mit Gegensinn [addad],”
67-108). (ibid., 198)
Limnah
the
name given to the largest unit of Nephite gold measure, is most plausibly
derived from the Hebrew manah, “mina (measuring unit for precious
metals) (Koehler and Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, s.v. mānāh)
with the preposition le-, having the meaning “to, for, according to a
mina” or as “a lamed of specification or reference” (Muraoka, “Emphasis in
Biblical Hebrew,” 92). One may also compare the Akkadian precative expressions limnu,
limnnni, limannu, “may he count” (Von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch,
2:604a-b), as a possible source of LIMNAH. (pp. 211-12)
Onti(es)
Although
the origin of the Lehite monetary term ONTI(ES) is somewhat uncertain,
the term may derive—like the gold monetary term antion—from the Egyptian
participle int, “bringing; buying” (Faulkner, Concise Dictionary of
Middle Egyptian, 22. The Semitic root could be √’nt/’nt or √v̄n/v̄n,
neither of which seems to fit). (p. 268)
Senine
The
most plausible etymology of SENINE is the Egyptian term sniw, a
unit of silver measure during the New Kingdom in Egypt (The sniw was
wroth about 5 diban; Janssen, Commodity Prices, 102-8). There is
one instance of a spelling snny (Janssen, Commodity Prices, 103),
although one might wish for more examples to show that this one writing is not
simply a scribal error. Another possible Egyptian etymology is sinn,
“likeness, image” (Erman and Grapow, Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache,
460), though this is not normally used of statues. The word becomes rare after
Late Egyptian, although it is attested through the Roman period (as snnw3)
(Jasnow and Zauzich, Ancient Egyptian Bok of Thoth, 107, 240-41). (p.
302)
Senum(s)
The
Lehite silver measure term SENUM may derive from the Egytpian silver
measure term sniw (The sniwi was wroth about 5 diban; Janssen, Commodity
Prices, 102-8). Alternatively, it may be related to the Egyptian nouns snn,
“image, likeness” (Erman and Grapow, Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache,
460), and snw, a type of jar discussed in the entry under senine . .
.(p. 303)
Seon
George
Reynolds and Janne Sjodahl have suggested that the Book of Mormon monetary
measure SEON may be derived from the Hebrew sē’â (Reynolds and Sjodahl,
Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 4:282), even though it never appears
in the King James Version transliterated in that form. With a nunated suffix,
the Hebrew s’n (found among fifth-century BC Jewish Aramaic documents at
Elephantine in ancient Egypt) (Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic,
295 [fig. 8, Measures and Weights], occurring, for example, in C3.13:37;
Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century BC, 3 [on the back of a
Behistun fragment]), as well as the Hebrew volumetric/capacity measure sē’â
may be the best source for SEON/sean. It is translated in the King James
Version as “measure” (Genesis 18:6; 1 Samuel 25:18; 1 Kings 18:32; 2 Kings 7:1,
16, 18), which was about 6.95 liters of grain, or one-third of an ephah. The “Canaanite
shift,” which took place during the mid-second millennium BC, was the shift of ā
to ō in Canaanite (which included proto-Hebrew), and may account for the
dialectical variant SEON/sean, which may have been devised by the Nephites
to be the weight in gold for some similar measure of capacity, and therefore
spelled in the same as the Egyptian Aramaic version and vocalized in the Lehite
Hebrew as *sě’ān. Asher Kaufman has pointed out the close connection
between later Jewish linear and volumetric measure by observing that the
conversion from linear measure to volume is known from the minimum volume of
water required in a ritual bath, namely 40 se’ah, which is related to
the linear dimensions of 3 cubits, by 1 cubit, by 1 cubit (for example, Talmud
Bavli ‘Eruvin 4b). Accordingly, one se’ah is equivalent to 6.68
litres (Kaufman, “Determining the Length of the Medium Cubit,” 131).
According
to Frank M. Cross, the ephah/bath in the Hellenistic period = 21.83 liter; one
liter of Jordanian barely weights 720 gm, thus 15,717.6 gm per ephah, and
7,858.8 gm per prs = 1/2 ardab/ephah = 1 1/2 sě’â; the Notre
Dame ephah of 21.25 liters gives a paras of 7,650 gm; the one at Araq el-Emir
is dated from the mid-first century AD to AD 200, the Late Herodian or early
post-Herodian era (Cross, “An Inscribed Weight,” 28-29, cited in Wolters, “Metrological
PRS-Terms,” 233).
Hebrew
sě’â is cognate with Akkadian še’atum, “milled-grain” (Von Soden,
Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, 3:1222a-b), and sūtum, se’ah, “a
measuring vessel” (Tawil, Akkadian Lexical Companion, 255, citing Chicago
Assyrian Dictionary, “,” 15:420a; Von Soden, Von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch,
2:1064a), which (like še’um) are ultimately derived from Sumerian še-,
similar to the Book of Mormon foreign word sheum (apparently a type of grain in
Mosiah 9:9). Since this is likely a capacity measure adapted by the Nephites to
become a measure of weight, it might be interested to ask whether the SEON/sean
in Alma 11 is the amount of gold required to purchase around 7 liters of grain
of some kind. One may also compare the Hebrew qab-measure (2 Kings 6:25), which
is about 1/6 of a sě’â = Egyptian qb(y) “measure of capacity”
(Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names, 254).
(pp. 303-5)
Note: the Printer’s Manuscript
reads “sean” in Alma 11:5, 8, 9. Royal Skousen recommends the use of the
spelling “seon” as in all printed editions. Skousen, Analysis of Textual
Variants, 4:1806 notes that
the
spelling seon is based on Oliver Cowdery's correction (in verse 9) of
scribe 2's sean to seon, which probably reflects the reading of
[the Original Manuscript] (no longer extant for any of the three occurrences of
this word in the text).
Shiblon
For
the Lehite weight, a deriviation from the Hebrew noun šibbolet, “ear of
grain,” would make sense. (The words Shublons appears in the earliest editions
of Alma 11:19, if Reynolds listing is correct [Reynolds and Sjodahl, Commentary
on the Book of Mormon, 4:282]). The derivation of SHIBLON from
feline names, such as the Arabic noun šibl, “jaguar cub,” is somewhat less
likely. (p. 328)
Shiblum/Shilum
The
money measure term SHIBLUM has been the reading in Alma 11:16, 17 since
the 1830 edition. It was written down as SHIBLUM in the original
manuscript by Oliver Cowdery (probably based on the reading of the word Shiblon
in Alma 11:15, 16; the reading of the original manuscript was then corrected by
him to shillum by overwriting the b with an l). Then
(possibly with the assistance of Joseph Smith) Oliver crossed off the
overwritten l to produce SHILUM. IN the printer’s manuscript it
appears only as SHILUM. The 1830 typesetter erroneously set SHIBLUM
in what is now verse 16), which has remained through the current edition of the
Book of Mormon. In verse 17 both the original manuscript and the printer’s
manuscript have only SHILUM, but the typesetter repeated the mistake of
verse 16 by setting SHIBLUM, the reading in the 1830-2013 editions.
While the derivation of SHIBLUM from ancient Hebrew is somewhat
problematical, the derivation of SHILUM/shillum is not. Its derivation
from the Hebrew noun shillûm, “reward, payment, compensation,” is found
in Micah 7:3 in the context of bribing judges (Koehler and Baumgartner, Hebrew
and Aramaic Lexicon, 1511). According to Hoftijzer, in Northwest Semitic
inscriptions šlm has the meaning “to be paid, repaid” (Hoftijzer and
Jongeling, Dictionary of North-West Semitic Inscriptions, 2:1145, s.v. šlm,
first entry). (pp. 329-30)
Shum
The
most obvious derivation of the Book of Mormon measure of gold weight, SHUM,
is the hypothetical Hebrew *šûm (Akkadian šūmu, Sumerian sum,
Arabic tūm, Aramaic tūmâ’, Proto-Semitic *tūmu),
“garlic” (cf. Koehler and Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, s.v. šûm).
The Hebrew šûm “garlic” may also readily be compared with ancient
Egyptian ‘dm, d’mw, “fine-gold, electrum,” from which Coptic djmo,
“electrum,” is developed. (p. 336)
