Etymologically
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פוך

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Pronunciation

Forms

פּוּךְ (pûḵ) noun, masculine[1][3] Only in the absolute, with the preposition: בַּפּוּךְ, “with eye paint”; in 1 Chronicles 29:2 the phrase אַבְנֵי פוּךְ.[4][5]

Etymology

The origin of the eye paint is disputed.[4][6] Noonan finds no cognate in Semitic and no link with the usual Semitic word for eye paint, and takes it as a loan from an unknown Mediterranean source, the same that lent Ancient Greek φῦκος (phûkos, “seaweed; red rouge”) and Latin fūcus to Greek and Latin;[6] Jezebel's Phoenician descent, he suggests, gave her access to the cosmetic through trade.[6] Beekes and Klein see it the other way round: for them the Greek word is a loan from Semitic, and its sense of make-up came before that of seaweed.[7][8] HALOT, BDB and Klein also consider a Semitic root meaning “to crush”, which would make it a fine powder: Syriac ܦܟܟ (pakk, “to break, pound”) and Arabic فَكَّ (fakka, “to break, separate”).[4][9][10][8] BDB adds that it may be a foreign word, and HALOT notes, after Lambdin, that Egyptian borrowed it from Semitic.[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first in the canon is the death of Jezebel: when Jehu came to Jezreel, wattāśem bappûḵ ʿênêhā, “she put paint on her eyes”, adorned her head and looked out of the window (2 Kings 9:30).[1][4] Jeremiah turns the same cosmetic against Jerusalem, which “tears open its eyes with paint”, that is, enlarges them, in vain (Jeremiah 4:30).[4][6]

Semantic evolution

HALOT notes that its make-up is disputed: most take it as the black kohl or stibium, others as a red pigment like the Greek one made from lichens.[4] BDB describes a black mineral powder that darkened the edges of the eyelids to make the eyes look brighter.[5] In Isaiah 54:11 and 1 Chronicles 29:2 it seems to be something used in building, perhaps a hard mortar, or a stone; there HALOT and Gesenius–Buhl report the reading נֹפֶךְ, a precious stone, which the Septuagint's Ancient Greek ἄνθραξ (ánthrax) in Isaiah supports.[4][11][1] The Septuagint renders it in Jeremiah by στίβι (stíbi), and the Vulgate by Latin stibium.[6][12] In the Talmud, eye paint cures an eye disease, stops tears and makes the lashes grow,[13] and Modern Hebrew פוך (pukh) means antimony and kohl.[3]

Timeline

  • Classical Biblical Hebrew – Jezebel's eye paint in 2 Kings 9:30.[1][6]
  • Prophetic books – Jeremiah 4:30, and the doubtful building sense of Isaiah 54:11.[4]
  • Late Biblical Hebrew – ʾaḇnê p̄ûḵ in 1 Chronicles 29:2.[4][1]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it Ancient Greek στίβι (stíbi) in Jeremiah 4:30.[14][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. eye paint, kohl, stibium; perhaps a red pigment.[4][5]
  2. (uncertain) a hard mortar or a kind of stone, in Isaiah 54:11 and 1 Chronicles 29:2.[4][15]

Descendants

  • Modern Hebrew פוך (pukh)[3]

Usage notes

The name of a daughter of Job, Keren-happuch (Job 42:14), “horn of eye paint”, contains the word.[4][13] The flask פַּךְ (1 Samuel 10:1, 2 Kings 9:1, 3) is a different spelling and has a separate source, probably onomatopoeic.[16][17]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. פּוּךְ
  5. ^ a b c d 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. פּוּךְ
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Noonan, Benjamin J. (2019), Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A Lexicon of Language Contact, University Park: Eisenbrauns (Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic 14), p. 170
  7. ^ 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, p. s.v. φῦκος
  8. ^ 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. פּוּךְ ᴵ
  9. ^ Sokoloff, Michael (2009), A Syriac Lexicon, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns; Piscataway: Gorgias Press, p. 1191
  10. ^ Lane, Edward William (1863–1893), An Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 parts, London: Williams and Norgate, p. 2430
  11. ^ Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. פּוּךְ
  12. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. στίβι
  13. ^ a b 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. פּוּךְ
  14. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
  15. ^ Holladay, William L. (1971), A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. פּוּךְ
  16. ^ 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. פַּךְ
  17. ^ Noonan, Benjamin J. (2019), Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A Lexicon of Language Contact, University Park: Eisenbrauns (Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic 14), p. 349