Woman, a Power Equal to Man - The BAS Library

Footnotes

1.

See Genesis 2:4b–24; the first creation story is in Genesis 1:1–2 4a.

2.

Thus, the word for “to hear” is sû-m-> in both Ugaritic and Hebrew; but the word for “youth” is gŒlm in Ugaritic, but >elem in Hebrew.

Endnotes

1.

Remember that Proverbs 31:10 describes the perfect wife as eµsûet hayil, “the woman of strength,” which corresponds to the masculine isû hayil, “the man of strength” (Genesis 47:6, etc.).

2.

Ugaritic also has the root gŒzr, “to be strong,” especially in the epithet of the god Mot, ydd il gŒzr, “the beloved hero of El” (See Patrick D. Miller, Jr., “Ugaritic gŒzr and Hebrew >zr II,” Ugarit Forschungen II (1970), pp. 159–175.)

3.

They are Exodus 18:4, Hosea 13:9, Psalms 20:2, 121:1 and 121:2, 124:8, and 146:5.

4.

See Deuteronomy 33:7; Psalms 33:20, 89:20 and 115:9–11; Ezekiel 12:14; Isaiah 30:5; Daniel 11:34.

5.

Another example of the Bible’s use of both meanings of a double entendre can be found in Genesis 9:20–27, where Ham “saw his father’s nakedness” (a euphemism for sexual intercourse, cf. Leviticus 20–17, and so meant in Genesis 9:20–21, as the curse proves, cf. Deuteronomy 27:20), but his brothers literally “cover their father’s nakedness” with a garment that they carry while walking backwards. Immanuel Casanowitz collected some 500 examples of paranomasia (puns) in his Paranomasia in the Old Testament (Boston, 1894).

6.

Other examples of “bone and flesh” that show a similar idiomatic usage are in Judges 9:2, 2 Samuel 5:1–1, 1 Chronicles 11:1, and 2 Samuel 19:13, all of which describe the intimate connection between a king and his constituents.

7.

My interpretation has been anticipated by medieval Jewish Midrashim, especially the Alfabeta d’Rabbi Akiva and Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer.