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Document Details :

Title: The Linguistic History of מדהבה
Subtitle: From Textual Corruption to Lexical Innovation
Author(s): MIZRAHI, Noam
Journal: Revue de Qumran
Volume: 26    Issue: 1   Date: numéro 101, 2013   
Pages: 91-114
DOI: 10.2143/RQ.26.1.3203300

Abstract :
The paper discusses the linguistic history of the Hebrew word מדהבה, which is a hapax legomenon in the Bible (Isa 14:4), but is also documented several times in the Dead Sea scrolls. Since text-critics commonly hold it to result from a scribal mistake (the original reading being מרהבה, as witnessed by 1QIsaa), its sense and distribution throughout the Second Temple period have eluded explanation thus far, and the exact relation between the two corpora of Biblical and Qumran Hebrew remains obscure. It is proposed that sound changes peculiar to the Greco-Roman period have facilitated a lexical reanalysis of מדהבה, and that the word was eventually integrated into the lexicon of Second Temple Hebrew by means of associative etymology, which is a recognized mechanism of semantic change.

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