שפן

Pronunciation

• Tiberian: šāp̄ān^[1]
• Samaritan reading tradition: šfan^[2]

Forms

שָׁפָן (šāp̄ān) noun, masculine, plural שְׁפַנִּים^[1][3] Plural שְׁפַנִּים.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Semitic *ṯapan- (“hyrax”), kept in Hebrew and in the Modern South Arabian languages, with Mehri ṯōfən and a Jibbali form.^[6] The first consonant is the interdental /ṯ/ that Hebrew turned into /š/.^[6] HALOT calls it probably a primary noun and cites Albright for a Proto-Sinaitic ⟨ṯpn⟩.^[5] The older lexica name the word the South Arabians use, Arabic ثَفَن (ṯafan), which Gesenius already knew; elsewhere in Arabic the animal is وَبْر (wabr).^[7][8][9] BDB and Gesenius–Buhl set up a root for it, but give it no verb.^[7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun occurs four times, twice in the food laws and twice in poetry.^[1] In the list of unclean animals the hyrax is forbidden kî-maʿălēh ḡērâ hûʾ ûp̄arsâ lōʾ yap̄rîs, “for it chews the cud but does not have a divided hoof” (Leviticus 11:5, Deuteronomy 14:7).^[1][4] HALOT notes that it is not in fact a ruminant.^[5]

Semantic evolution

HALOT identifies it as the rock hyrax, Procavia or Heterohyrax syriacus, and BDB as the rock-badger, the “coney” of the English Bibles.^[5][4] The poems know it as an animal of the rocks: “the crags are a refuge for the hyraxes” (Psalm 104:18), and Proverbs 30:26 counts them among the small but wise creatures, šəp̄annîm ʿam lōʾ-ʿāṣûm, “the hyraxes, a people not mighty”, who make their home in the rock.^[8][1] The Septuagint mostly renders it Ancient Greek χοιρογρύλλιος (khoirogrúllios),^[11] but in Leviticus 11:5 MACULA aligns it with δασύπους (dasúpous), the hare.^[1][12] The Midrash on Proverbs reads the hyrax, with its signs of cleanness and uncleanness, as Media.^[13] Today Modern Hebrew שפן (shafán) means the hyrax and, by a use Wiktionary marks as proscribed, the rabbit.^[3]

Timeline

• Classical Biblical Hebrew – in the food laws (Leviticus 11:5, Deuteronomy 14:7).^[1][4]
• Biblical poetry – Psalm 104:18 and Proverbs 30:26.^[1]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it by Ancient Greek χοιρογρύλλιος (khoirogrúllios).^[14][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. the rock hyrax, rock-badger, “coney”; an unclean animal living among the rocks.^[5][4]

Descendants

• Modern Hebrew שפן (shafán)^[3]

Usage notes

The personal name Shaphan, borne by King Josiah's scribe (2 Kings 22:3), is the same word according to HALOT, and špn is found as a name on seals, one of them from the late 7th century.^[15][16] The verb שָׂפַן, with ś, occurs once, in the archaic Blessing of Moses: śəp̄ûnê ṭəmûnê ḥôl, “the hidden treasures of the sand” (Deuteronomy 33:19); BDB and Klein treat it as a by-form of ספן, “to cover”.^{[17][18][19][1]}

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 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. שָׁפָן
5. ^ a b c d e 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. שָׁפָן I
6. ^ a b Kogan, Leonid (2015), Genealogical Classification of Semitic: The Lexical Isoglosses, Berlin: De Gruyter, p. 124
7. ^ 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. שׁפן
8. ^ a b Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. שָׁפָן
9. ^ Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. שָׁפָן
10. ^ Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. שׁפן
11. ^ a b Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. χοιρογρύλλιος
12. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. δασύπους
13. ^ 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. שָׁפָן
14. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
15. ^ 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. שָׁפָן II
16. ^ Davies, Graham I. (2004), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 101.116
17. ^ 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. שׂפן
18. ^ Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. שׂפן
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. שׂפן