יובל

Forms

יוֹבֵל (yôḇēl) noun, masculine^[1][2] Defective יֹבֵל, plural יוֹבְלִים, also defective יֹבְלִים.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Semitic *wabil- (“ram”).^[4][5] The animal name is kept in Phoenician ybl (“ram”), in a Punic priestly tariff,^[6][4] in Jewish Aramaic “ram, bell-wether”,^[4][7] and in Akkadian yabilu (“ram”), a West Semitic word in a Neo-Assyrian lexical list.^[8][9] Huehnergard treats it as a Canaanite noun.^[10] HALOT connects it with a root meaning “to push”, and Klein with יָבַל (yāḇal, “to bear, carry”), taking the first sense to be “the leader of the flock, bell-wether”.^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is absent from the archaic poems.^[1] At Sinai the people may go up the mountain bimšōḵ hayyōḇēl, “when the ram's horn sounds long” (Exodus 19:13), and at Jericho the priests carry šôp̄rôṯ hayyôḇəlîm, “trumpets of rams' horns” (Joshua 6:4–13).^[1][11][2]

Semantic evolution

BDB and HALOT see the jubilee year as named after the instrument: šənaṯ hayyôḇēl “the year of the ram's horn”, the fiftieth year announced by the horn, then simply hayyôḇēl and yôḇēl.^[2][11][12] The sense is confined to the Holiness Code and the Priestly laws (Leviticus 25 and 27, Numbers 36:4).^[2][1] Leviticus 25:10 says yôḇēl hîʾ tihyeh lāḵem, “it shall be a jubilee for you”, a year of release when each man returns to his property.^[1][11]

The Septuagint translates the year by sense, as Ancient Greek ἄφεσις (áphesis, “release”).^[1] In the Book of Jubilees the word became a period of fifty years.^[11] The Vulgate's annus iubilaei was shaped by Latin iubilare, the call of shepherds or of war,^[11] and English jubilee goes back to the Hebrew word.^[10] Rabbinic Hebrew kept the jubilee, and Jewish Aramaic used יוֹבֵלָא (yôḇēlā) for both the ram and the year.^[11][7] Modern Hebrew יובל (yovél) means “jubilee, anniversary”.^[13]

Timeline

• Classical Biblical Hebrew – all 27 uses are in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Joshua: the ram's horn at Sinai and Jericho, the jubilee year in the laws.^[1][2]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders the year as Ancient Greek ἄφεσις (áphesis).^[14][1]
• 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 87 uses in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 66 of them in non-biblical texts such as the calendar scrolls.^[15][16]

Meanings

Noun

1. a ram; only in the phrases for the ram's horn used as a trumpet.^[11][2]
2. the ram's horn itself, sounded as a signal.^[11][17]
3. the jubilee: the fiftieth year, of release of land and slaves, proclaimed by the horn.^[11][2]

Descendants

• Latin iubilaeus^[11]
• English jubilee^[10]
• Modern Hebrew יובל (yovél)^[13]

Usage notes

A second word yûḇal “stream, watercourse” is found once, in Jeremiah 17:8, where the righteous man is a tree that sends out its roots “by the stream”.^[1][18] It belongs to the root “to bring, carry”, and Tawil compares the West Semitic term yābiltum “water conduit” of Mari.^[19][9] The name Yûḇāl, Jubal, the father of musicians (Genesis 4:21), is a separate word.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. יוֹבֵל
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 Militarev, Alexander; Kogan, Leonid (2005), Semitic Etymological Dictionary, vol. 2: Animal Names, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag (AOAT 278/2)
5. ^ Militarev, Alexander, et al., Semitic Etymology (database semet), The Tower of Babel (StarLing), starling.rinet.ru
6. ^ Krahmalkov, Charles R. (2000), Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, Leuven: Peeters (OLA 90)
7. ^ a b Kaufman, Stephen A., ed., Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, cal.huc.edu
8. ^ Black, Jeremy; George, Andrew; Postgate, Nicholas (2000), A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. s.v. yabilu
9. ^ a b Tawil, Hayim ben Yosef (2009), An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew: Etymological-Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalents, Jersey City: Ktav, p. 139
10. ^ a b c 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
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. יוֹבֵל
12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. יוֹבֵל
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
17. ^ Holladay, William L. (1971), A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. יוֹבֵל
18. ^ 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. יוּבַל
19. ^ Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. יוּבָל
20. ^ 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. יוּבָל