Monday, October 17, 2022

Holger Gzella, “עור,” in Aramaic Dictionary (2018)

  

 

עור ʿwr /ʿūr/; אדר ʾdr /ʾedder/

 

I. Etymology and Lexical Field. II. Noun “Chaff.” III. Noun “Threshing Floor.”

 

I. Etymology and Lexical Field. The substantive ʿwr /ʿūr/ “chaff” may involve an Aramaic primary noun; Hebrew employs the word mōṣ. It occurs in older Aramaic only in the vision of the colossus with clay feet in Dnl. 2:35, but Syriac also attests it thereafter as a feminine that may be related to the Arabic ʿuwwār “dust.” The masculine noun ʾdr /ʾedder/ “threshing floor” belongs to the same semantic field, originally a qittil-form subsequently revocalized as /ʾeddar/. In Dnl. 2:35 it appears with /ʿūr/, but also appears elsewhere in isolation. In any case, the exact paradigm in the Tiberian vocalization of the plural cannot be deduced from the construct state (ʾidde) attested only here.

 

II. Noun “Chaff.” The context of the sole instance of ʿwr in older Aramaic is the comparison in a dream vision of the statue pulverized with a stone to chaff on a threshing floor in the summer (whww kʿwr mn ʾdry qyṭ). The statue of various metals, but with feet of mixed iron and clay, symbolizes four empires with diminishing worth, the latter weak because of a lack of internal unity, and the stone the kingdom of God that constitutes the conclusion of history. This vision pictures the reversal of circumstances: a single stone smatters the colossus and itself grows into a mountain that fills the earth, while the gigantic statue collapses into dust. The wind, however, carries the dust away, so that it cannot be found anywhere. Thereby, all memory of the central concerns of the earthly kings who glorify their deeds in inscriptions also vanishes. The formulation of the comparison alludes to the summer as the time of harvest and judgment. Consequently, secular and divine power prove to be incommensurable.

 

III. Noun “Threshing Floor.” Besides Dnl. 2:35 (→ II), ʾdr “threshing floor” also appears in debt instruments of the Neo-Assyrian period in the translation of the Akkadian expression ina adri “on (a) threshing floor,” which establishes where the lent grain should be returned. The word occurs further in an early Achaemenid lease agreement (515 b.c.e.) in relation to the transportation of grain by ass. It continues in dispute, however, whether the Babylonian name of the twelfth month, /ʾadar/ (Feburary/March), is etymologically related as the “month of threshing.”

 

Source: Holger Gzella, “עור,” Aramaic Dictionary, ed. Holger Gzella (Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament volume 16; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2018), 556–557