Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/1212

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is still undiscovered. The derivation of it from the Sanscrit Valgu, i.e., pulcher (Lassen and Ritter), has been set aside by Gesenius as inappropriate, and mocha, mochâta, which is said to signify sandal-wood in Sanscrit, has been suggested instead. But no evidence has been adduced in its favour, nor is the word to be found in Wilson's Sanscrit Lexicon. If, however, this derivation were correct, אל would be the Arabic article, and the introduction of this article in connection with the word mocha would be a proof that the sandal-wood, together with its name, came to the Hebrews through merchants who spoke Arabic. - The other articles from Ophir mentioned in 1Ki 10:22 are שׁגהבּים, ὀδόντες ἐλεφάντινοι (lxx), dentes elephantorum or ebur (Vulg.), דפיל ,).gluV( שׁן, elephants' teeth (Targ.). But however certain the meaning of the word may thus appear, the justification of this meaning is quite as uncertain. In other cases ivory is designated by the simple term שׁן   (1Ki 10:18; 1Ki 22:39; Psa 45:9; Amo 3:15, etc.), whereas Ezekiel (Eze 27:15) calls the whole tusk קרנות שׁן, horns of the tooth. הבּים is said to signify elephants here; and according to Benary it is contracted from האבּים, the Sanscrit word ibha, elephant; according to Ewald, from הלבּים, from the Sanscrit Kalabha; and according to Hitzig, from נהבים = להבים, Libyi; or else שׁגהבּים is a false reading for והבנים שׁן, ivory and ebony, according to Eze 27:15 (see Ges. Thes. p. 1453). Of these four derivations the first two are decidedly wrong: the first, because ibha as a name for the elephant only occurs, according to Weber, in the later Indian writings, and is never used in the earlier writings in this sense (vid., Roediger, Addenda ad Ges. thes. p. 115); the second, because Kalabha does not signify the elephant, but catulum elephanti, before it possesses any teeth available for ivory. The third is a fancy which its originator himself has since given up and the fourth a conjecture, which is not raised to a probability even by the attempt of Böttcher to show that הבּים is a case of backward assimilation from הבנים, because the asyndeton הבּים שׁן between two couples connected by ו is without any analogy, and the passages adduced by Böttcher, viz., Deu 29:22; Jos 15:54., and Even Eze 27:33, are to be taken in quite a different way. -  The rendering of קפים by apes, and the connection of the name not only with the Sanscrit and Malabar kapi, but also with the Greek κῆπος and κῆβος, also κεῖβος, are much surer; but, on the other hand, the assumption