בשם

Forms

בֹּשֶׂם (bōśem) noun, masculine^[1][4] By-forms בֶּשֶׂם (Exodus 30:23) and בָּשָׂם (Song of Songs 5:1, with suffix בְּשָׂמִי); plural בְּשָׂמִים, with suffix בְּשָׂמָיו.^[1][4]

Etymology

Huehnergard reconstructs a Central Semitic noun *baśam- (“balsam”).^[5] Its cognates are Aramaic בּוּסְמָא (busmā), Classical Syriac ܒܣܡܐ (besmā) and Arabic بَشَام (bašām, “a fragrant shrub”).^[1][4][6] The verb “to smell sweet”, with Aramaic and Syriac “to be sweet, pleasant”, is a denominative from the noun in HALOT's view.^[7][8] Klein and BDB, on the contrary, derive the noun from the verb.^[6][9] BDB and Klein compare Akkadian bašāmu (“to make, make beautiful”), and Gesenius–Buhl an Akkadian word for fragrance.^[9][6][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun is absent from the archaic poems;^[2] its first use in the canon is in the Priestly instructions for the tabernacle, bəśāmîm ləšemen hammišḥâ, “spices for the anointing oil” (Exodus 25:6).^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

HALOT distinguishes the balsam tree, in the Song of Songs' “beds of balsam” and “mountains of spices”, from balsam oil and spices in general.^[1][4] Spices were a mark of wealth, among royal gifts (1 Kings 10:2, 10) and treasures (2 Kings 20:13).^[4][2] They were burnt at a burial (2 Chronicles 16:14), went into the anointing oil (Exodus 30:23), where qinnəmān-beśem is sweet cinnamon and qənê-ḇōśem an aromatic cane, and were used to prepare the women of Ahasuerus (Esther 2:12).^[4][1]

The Septuagint renders it as Ancient Greek ἄρωμα (árōma, “spice”) and ἥδυσμα (hḗdusma).^[2] Greek βάλσαμον (bálsamon) is generally thought to come from a Semitic word like this one, and the source of Latin balsamum and English balsam.^{[11][6][12][5]} Modern Hebrew בושם (bósem) means “scent, fragrance”.^[13][6]

Timeline

• Classical Biblical Hebrew – the spices of the anointing oil in the Priestly laws (Exodus 25:6, 30:23) and the royal gifts of 1 Kings 10:10.^[2][4]
• Late Biblical Hebrew – eight uses in Esther and Chronicles.^[2]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it with Ancient Greek ἄρωμα (árōma).^[14][2]
• 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 13 uses in the Dead Sea Scrolls.^[15][16]

Meanings

Noun

1. the balsam tree.^[1][6]
2. balsam oil;^[11] (plural) spices, perfumes, costly as gifts and goods of trade.^[1][4]
3. fragrance, sweet odour.^[4]
4. in compounds: qinnəmān-beśem sweet cinnamon, qənê-ḇōśem aromatic cane.^[1]

Descendants

• Ancient Greek βάλσαμον (bálsamon)^[11][1]
• Modern Hebrew בושם (bósem)^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. בֹּשֶׂם
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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. בֹּשֶׂם
5. ^ a b Huehnergard, John (2011), "Proto-Semitic Language and Culture" and "Semitic Roots", in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. בֹּשֶׂם
7. ^ 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. בשׂם
8. ^ Sokoloff, Michael (2009), A Syriac Lexicon, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns; Piscataway: Gorgias Press
9. ^ a b 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. בשׂם
10. ^ Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. בֹּשֶׂם
11. ^ a b c Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. βάλσαμον
13. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
14. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
15. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
16. ^ Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss