Etymologically
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בוא

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Pronunciation

  • Tiberian: bôʾ[1][2]
  • Samaritan reading tradition: perfect bā, imperfect yāba[3]

Forms

בּוֹא (bôʾ) verb[1] Qal perfect בָּא, imperfect יָבוֹא, short form וַיָּבֹא, imperative בֹּא, infinitive בּוֹא, participle בָּא; hiphil הֵבִיא “to bring”, hophal הוּבָא “to be brought”.[4][1] HALOT counts about 2,550 occurrences, MACULA 2,556.[4][2] The Lachish and Arad letters write it bʾ, ybʾ, lbʾ.[5][6]

Etymology

The verb “to come” is common Semitic: Ugaritic bʾ (“to enter, come”), Phoenician bʾ, Akkadian bâʾu (“to go along, come in”), Ge'ez ቦአ (boʾa, “to enter”) and Arabic بَاءَ (bāʾa, “to return”).[4][7][8][9][10][11] HALOT adds a Tigre verb and Sabaean bhʾ (“to enter”), used of sexual union.[4] Tawil sets the Hebrew pair “come” and “go” beside the same Akkadian pair, with alāku (“to go”), and the phrase “to come through a gate” beside its Akkadian equivalent.[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the Lachish letters, which Sáenz-Badillos dates to the 6th century BC, three times in Lachish 3, and in letters from Arad.[5][13][14] In the Bible it is already in the archaic poems: Jacob's blessing on Simeon and Levi says bəsōḏām ʾal-tāḇōʾ nap̄šî “let my soul not come into their council” (Genesis 49:6), and the Song of the Sea təḇiʾēmô wəṯiṭṭāʿēmô “you will bring them in and plant them” (Exodus 15:17).[15][2]

Semantic evolution

HALOT orders the qal from “to enter” (a house, a city, the king's presence), with bôʾ ʾel-ʾiššâ “to go in to a woman”, to “to come”, of people, of days (hinnê yāmîm bāʾîm “days are coming”, Jeremiah 7:32), of harvests and money, of misfortune that comes upon someone, and of a sign or promise that “comes true”.[4] In the archaic poems it also describes the coming of God (Deuteronomy 33:2, Habakkuk 3:3); Klein adds the setting of the sun.[4][16] The hiphil means to bring, lead in, bring in the harvest, offer a sacrifice, or bring someone into judgment, and the hophal to be brought.[4]

The Septuagint renders it by Ancient Greek ἔρχομαι (érkhomai), εἰσέρχομαι (eisérkhomai) and ἥκω (hḗkō).[17] In Rabbinic Hebrew the sense “to enter” passed to the niphal of כָּנַס (kānas), and bîʾâ became the word for intercourse.[4][18] Modern Hebrew בּוֹא (bó) is the ordinary verb “to come”.[11]

Timeline

  • 6th century BC – bʾ three times in Lachish letter 3 and in letters from Arad.[14][5][6]
  • Archaic Hebrew poetry – ʾal-tāḇōʾ nap̄šî in the Blessing of Jacob (Genesis 49:6) and the hiphil təḇiʾēmô in the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:17).[15][2]
  • Classical Biblical Hebrew – 1,206 of the 2,556 occurrences are in Genesis to Kings.[2]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it as Ancient Greek ἔρχομαι (érkhomai) and εἰσέρχομαι (eisérkhomai).[19][17]
  • 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 1,888 occurrences in the Dead Sea Scrolls.[20][21]

Meanings

Verb

  1. qal: to enter, go in;[16] bôʾ ʾel a woman, to have intercourse with her.[4][1]
  2. qal: to come, arrive; of days and events, to come, to be coming.[4]
  3. qal: to come upon someone, of misfortune; to come true, of a promise or a sign.[4]
  4. qal: to return home; with yāṣāʾ, “to go out and come in”, to lead in war and in daily life.[4]
  5. qal (of the sun): to set.[1][16]
  6. hiphil: to bring, lead in; to bring in the harvest; to bring an offering.[4]
  7. hophal: to be brought.[4]

Word family

  • מָבוֹא (māḇôʾ)
  • תְּבוּאָה (təḇûʾâ)

Descendants

  • Modern Hebrew בּוֹא (bó)[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. בּוֹא
  2. ^ a b c d e Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
  3. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. בוא
  5. ^ a b c Davies, Graham I. (1991), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1.003.11
  6. ^ a b Davies, Graham I. (1991), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 2.024.20
  7. ^ del Olmo Lete, Gregorio; Sanmartín, Joaquín (2015), A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, 3rd ed., transl. W. G. E. Watson, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. b-ʔ
  8. ^ Gelb, Ignace J., et al., eds. (1956–2010), The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 21 vols, Chicago: Oriental Institute, p. B 181
  9. ^ von Soden, Wolfram (1965–1981), Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 117
  10. ^ Lane, Edward William (1863–1893), An Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 parts, London: Williams and Norgate, p. 271
  11. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  12. ^ Tawil, Hayim ben Yosef (2009), An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew: Etymological-Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalents, Jersey City: Ktav, p. 46
  13. ^ Davies, Graham I. (1991), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1.003.19
  14. ^ a b Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 77
  15. ^ a b Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 69
  16. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. בוא
  17. ^ a b Tov, Emanuel; Kraft, Robert A. (1987), CATSS Parallel Aligned Hebrew and Greek Texts of Jewish Scripture, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania (Oxford Text Archive 1111)
  18. ^ Jastrow, Marcus (1886–1903), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London: Luzac; New York: Putnam, p. s.v. בּוֹא
  19. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
  20. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
  21. ^ Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss