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קבב qābab – to curse

Semantic Fields: Cursing   
Author(s): James K. Aitken
First published: 2024-10-10
Citation: James K. Aitken, קבב qābab – to curse,
               Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database (sahd-online.com), 2024

Introduction

Grammatical Type: vb. qal
Occurrences: 14x HB (10/0/4); 1x Sir; 0x Qum, 0x inscr. (Total: 15).

  • Torah – Num 22:11, 17; 23:8 (2x), 11, 13, 25 (2x), 27; 24:10;
  • Ketubim – Job 3:8; 5:3; Prov 11:26; 24:24;
  • Sira – 41:7B,Mas.

7. Conclusion

A.1 The verb קבב, in view of the lexemes that are found in parallelism with it, and the contexts in which it is found, has the meaning ‘to curse’. We are unable to determine the precise nature of the act of cursing, and any suggestion that it is more of a ‘concrete’ act than in the case of other lexemes in the field in terms of the manner of its utterance cannot be substantiated.

A.2 It seems probable that קבב is originally a dialectal word, but that by the time of LBH the lexeme had been integrated with the Classical Hebrew vocabulary (Sir 41:7). In Sir it is clear that the meaning of the lexeme, as with many others in the field, had changed to that of ‘to reproach, chastise’. Perhaps קבב began as a dialectal word for ‘to curse’ and over time came to be used in Heb. with the developed meaning, especially in poetic or sapiential literature. Its parallelism with זעם in Prov 24:24 might suggest this.

For this entry, see further James K. Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing in Ancient Hebrew (2007), 220-29 (Printed publications).

Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database