{"id":64396,"date":"2021-07-22T12:05:52","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T16:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/?p=64396"},"modified":"2022-01-31T11:00:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T16:00:40","slug":"wordplay-in-genesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/scholars-study\/wordplay-in-genesis\/","title":{"rendered":"Wordplay in Genesis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Abraham's<\/a>

ABRAHAM\u2019S ANGELS. The Promise of the Three Angels to Abraham<\/em> by Lodovico Buti.<\/p><\/div>\n

It is no secret to students of the Bible that the ancient Hebrews loved plays on words. And nowhere in the Hebrew Bible are there more plays on words in relation to names than in the Book of Genesis.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the name Abraham. Abraham starts life as Abram, a name with parallels in ancient sources. Abram\u2019s name means \u201chigh father\u201d or more probably \u201cexalted Ab,\u201d where Ab (meaning \u201cfather\u201d) is a deity\u2019s name or an epithet of a deity such as El, the Canaanite father of the gods.<\/p>\n

Yet there is no name like Abraham. Why precisely did God change Abram\u2019s name to Abraham, a name that has no discernible meaning in Hebrew? Abraham means father (ab)<\/em> of r-h-m<\/em>, but there is no word with the root r-h-m<\/em> attested anywhere in the Bible or in the known Ugaritic or Phoenician language texts. Hebrew (and other Semitic languages) consists of mostly three-letter roots, such as z-k-r<\/em>, which means \u201cto remember.\u201d As a noun, the word zeker<\/em> means \u201cmemory.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the root r-h-m<\/em> does exist in Classical Arabic, a dialect of Arabic attested about a thousand years later than Hebrew. In Arabic, r-h-m<\/em> usually pertains to a particular kind of rain. \u2018Arhamu, one form of this root, means \u201cmore (and most) fruitful or plentiful, or abundant in herbage or in the goods or comforts of life.1<\/sup><\/a> It is tempting to conclude that there is an otherwise unattested Arabic root r-h-m<\/em> meaning \u201cto be plentiful,\u201d but this is admittedly speculative. Because we can\u2019t be sure that such a root existed in Arabic, it is even a bigger leap to understand the r-h-m<\/em> of Abraham\u2019s name as meaning \u201cto be plentiful\u201d in Hebrew, even though it would fit well with a presumed meaning, \u201cfather of a multitude (of nations).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t

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