Lehavim

להבים


Genesis 10:13 names them as sons of Mitsrayim (מצרים), which is to say an Egyptian tribe or people, possibly the Libyans (though these are usually given as Luvim - לובים; cf 2 Chronicles 12:3 and 16:8, Daniel 11:43), that land being then much bigger than now, reckoning Egypt as Nilic and Libya as everything west as far as Mauretania (which is to say Morocco/Tunisia/Algiers).

Lahav (להב) means "a flame" or "the tip of a spear", which may be a figurative allusion to the intense heat of the Libyan desert. The flame, and spear, are not however those of "the flaming sword - לַהַט הַחֶרֶב - in Genesis 3:24, which is a Yisra-Eli version of the Hindu swastika or fire-wheel. See rather Numbers 21:28, Joel 2:5, Job 41:13, et al.

The root of Luvim (לובים) in Arabic is equivalent to the Yehudit La'av (לאב) = "to thirst", a root which never appears in the Tanach except as Erets Taluvot (ארץ תלאבות) = "an arid land" in Hosea 13:5.



Copyright © 2019 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press

No comments:

Post a Comment