Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 37:1 (NA 1986)
Article: Technical Terms In Biblical Hebrew?
Author: Roger W. Cowley

TynBul 37:1 (1986) p. 21

Technical Terms In Biblical Hebrew?

Roger W. Cowley

The Tyndale Old Testament Lecture, 1985

In works commenting on the Hebrew Scriptures various Hebrew words are sometimes stated to be ‘technical terms’, or to be used in ‘technical senses’. This Study aims to explore (i) whether ‘technicity’ can be adequately defined, (ii) whether alleged technicity has formed a basis for illogical argument, and (iii) whether there are avenues for further research.

I commence1 inductively with a random collection of samples of words said to be ‘technical’:

1. On ריב in Isaiah 41:21–22a, ‘“to set forth the case”(rīb is a-technical term for a process) . . .’.2

2. On Esther 8:10 (רמכים), Proverbs 7:16 (אטון), Nahum 2:4 (פלדות) and 2 Kings 6:25 (דביונים), ‘An additional four such cases [of hapax legomena] entail the use of clearly technical terms’.3

3. On מבול in Genesis, ‘Mabbūl does not mean “flood”, “inundation”, or even “destruction”, but it is a ethnical term for a part of the world structure, namely, the heavenly ocean’.4

4. On זבח in Leviticus, ‘The technical term for the peace offering is in Hebrew zebaḥ’.5

TynBul 37:1 (1986) p. 22

5. On שנא in Judges 15:2, ‘The latter is based on the technical term used in matters of divorce (Deut. 24.3)’.6

6. ‘Sometimes one noun (of a pair of homonyms) belongs to a fairly general semantic field, while another is much more technical, being the name of an animal, an instrument, a measure, or the like. This applies to pairs like אנקה “crying” and אנקה “ferret, shrew- mouse”;