רמח

Forms

רֹמַח (rōmaḥ) noun, masculine^[1][3] Plural רְמָחִים, with suffix רָמְחֵיהֶם.^[4][5] The War Scroll from Qumran writes it רמח, never with w.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Semitic *rVmḥ- (“spear”), a word Kogan finds in the West Semitic languages and not in Akkadian.^[6] HALOT calls it a primary noun, and BDB a word of unknown etymology.^[4][5] The cognates are Ugaritic mrḥ,^[7][4] Jewish Aramaic רֻמְחָא (rumḥā), Classical Syriac ܪܽܘܡܚܳܐ (rumḥā), Arabic رُمْح (rumḥ, “lance”),^[8] Sabaean rmḥ and Ge'ez ረምሕ (ramḥ).^[5][6][4] Egyptian mrḥ “lance” is a loan from the Semitic word.^[4][7][9] Since Bochart and Lagarde some have derived Ancient Greek λόγχη (lónkhē, “spearhead”) from it too,^[10][9] but Gesenius–Buhl cites Lewy against this, and Beekes calls the Greek word unexplained.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun appears first in the archaic Song of Deborah: māḡēn ʾim-yērāʾeh wārōmaḥ bəʾarbāʿîm ʾelep̄ bəyiśrāʾēl, “was a shield to be seen, or a spear, among forty thousand in Israel?” (Judges 5:8).^[12][1] In prose Phinehas takes a rōmaḥ in his hand and pierces the Israelite and the Midianite woman with it (Numbers 25:7–8).^[1][13]

Semantic evolution

It is the spear or lance, a long wooden shaft with a sharp iron head, used for thrusting.^[14] It is often named with the shield, the sword and the bow, and nine of its 15 occurrences are in Chronicles and Nehemiah, where armies carry ṣinnâ wārōmaḥ, “shield and spear”.^[1][10] Joel 4:10 calls for the opposite of peace: “beat your ploughshares into swords and your pruning knives into spears”.^[13] The Septuagint renders it by Ancient Greek δόρυ (dóru), Ancient Greek λόγχη (lónkhē) and σειρομάστης.^[1] The War Scroll from Qumran names it among the weapons of the battle line.^[4][15] The word is kept in Modern Hebrew רֹמַח (rómakh).^[3]

Timeline

• Archaic Hebrew poetry – wārōmaḥ in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5:8).^[12][1]
• Late Biblical Hebrew – nine of its 15 occurrences, in Chronicles and Nehemiah.^[1]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint translates it by Ancient Greek δόρυ (dóru) and Ancient Greek λόγχη (lónkhē).^[16][1]
• 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 13 occurrences in the Dead Sea Scrolls, four in the War Scroll.^[17][15]

Meanings

Noun

1. a spear, a lance for thrusting.^[4][5][14]

Descendants

• Modern Hebrew רֹמַח (rómakh)^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
2. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
3. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. רֹמַח
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. רֹמַח
6. ^ a b Kogan, Leonid (2015), Genealogical Classification of Semitic: The Lexical Isoglosses, Berlin: De Gruyter, p. 96
7. ^ a b 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. mrḥ
8. ^ Lane, Edward William (1863–1893), An Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 parts, London: Williams and Norgate, p. 1153
9. ^ 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. רֹמַח
10. ^ a b c Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. רֹמַח
11. ^ 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. λόγχη
12. ^ a b Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 69
13. ^ a b Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer (1908–1959), Millon ha-lashon ha-ʿivrit ha-yeshanah ve-ha-ḥadashah / Thesaurus totius hebraitatis, 16 vols, Jerusalem; typed edition, Project Ben-Yehuda (benyehuda.org), p. s.v. רֹמַח
14. ^ a b de Blois, Reinier, ed. (2000–), Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, United Bible Societies, sdbh.org, p. s.v. רֹמַח
15. ^ a b Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss
16. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
17. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143