The Hebrew word for foot is רגל (regel). Like "hand," most of the time regel means exactly what you think it should mean, the things at the lower end of your legs that you put in shoes and stand on. For the record, at least in Rabbinic Hebrew, regel sometimes also means "leg."And begins his case with Ezekiel 16:25. Now, evidently this verse is concerned with sex, so obviously "feet" here do not mean what is at the bottom of ones legs, but rather what is between them ;-0
Or does it... If instead of assuming a euphemistic use of רגל why not just assume that רגל means "leg" here, as it does in 1 Sam 17:6 and as Rashi, and various later translators and commentators have thought it does here?
Having failed to convince me that his first example requires a euphemistic reading Duane passes on to Judges 3:24. I discussed this at some length in my first post, now I would just add that (as Rashi again noted) "Targum Jonathan renders עָבִיד צוֹרְכֵיה (doing his needs), i. e., moving his bowels" this does not require an equation of feet with anything other than "feet", but does seem to me to suggest possibly anachronistic forms of clothing. Actually, the more I look at this passage the more puzzled I become. Everyone seems agreed that the mention of "covering his feet" is a reference either to urination or to defecation. Yet the location in which Eglon is "covering his feet" is the (same?) "upper room" in which in v.20 he received Ehud - was the Moabite king in the habit of inviting guests into his toilet?
Duane's example from 2 Kings 18:27 is thoroughly convincing. Here the Hebrew text of the Bible reads that the besieged Judeans will be doomed:
לֶאֱכֹ֣ל אֶת חֲרֵיהֶם וְלִשְׁתּ֛וֹת אֶת־שֵׁינֵיהֶם
The Masoretic scribes found this a little too explicit, so for both terms they suggested alternative "readings":
"to eat their own dirt, and drink the water of their feet"
The trouble with this for my purposes is that all it demonstrates is that by the time of the Masoretes "feet" had possibly come to have a euphemistic meaning of the sort proposed. There is according to Duane no clear cut example in Ugaritic (which anyway uses a word that is not a cognate of רגל. And: "I was unable to find and did not look too diligently for examples in Akkadian or Egyptian."
It still seems to me that the case for a common euphemism רגל = sexual organs is simply unproven. Biblical scholars should stop appealing to this supposed euphemistic use until there is better evidence to support it for biblical Hebrew. (That it existed later I do not dispute. The example above is (almost) enough to convince me ;-)
Labels: 1 Kings, bible, biblical.studies, ezekiel, isaiah, judges
¶ 7:26 PM
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Tim
Thanks for the engaging discussion. If I were to write those posts again, I would no doubt see them differently in some details, but I do remain convened that feet/legs sometimes means something other than feet/legs. You have convinced me that my Ezekiel 16:25 example is weaker than I had thought at the time. And I'm a little more confused about what "covering his feet" means than I once was. As you might guess, I object to the use of the word "unproven." Rather, I take it that you think it unlikely that רגל was regularly used as a euphemism in Biblical Hebrew. I no doubt think that it is more likely that it was than you do. These days, I would much rather speak in terms of probability and synthesis of evidence and let the logicians and the mathematicians have their "proofs." I sometimes wonder if there is purposeful ambiguity in some of these passages. The Ruth example comes to mind. Anyway, one thing that you and Sean-the-Baptist will likely find, as I have, is that these post will become among the most often linked to from Google searches.
By 
Duane Smith, at
June 12, 2008 5:45 AM
If one understands it in the sense of mathematical "proofs" then the word was very badly chosen, sorry! I had in mind the image of a law court, which is where I come across the form "unproven" (I think). All I meant was that if instead of doing as generations of biblical scholars have done, and assuming there is a common euphemism feet = sex organs, but rather regards this as a novel reading whose probability has to be demonstrated then the case is (I think) still "unproven", that is there is not enough evidence to convict ;-)
Though if there was such a usage, then in the Ruth example it would certainly add to the general air of innuendo in that chapter!
By Tim, at
June 12, 2008 6:29 AM
The Hebrew has gone out of proper word order (at least on my computer screen).
By N T Wrong, at
June 13, 2008 9:14 AM
Hi, Milord Wrong, at a guess you are using Internet Explorer, at least to reproduce the problem I had to fire IE up as in Firefox everything was fine. At a guess FF is more tollerant and IE stricter or something about Unicode RTL. In any case I have - I hope - got it all orderly in both browsers.
Thanks for pointing it out. I also fixed the quote that had the line breaks as a bonus extra!
Now all it needs is someone using a Mac to still find problems to really make my day ;-) and I thought that Unicode would solve all this "problems with Hebrew on the web" stuff.
It does... BUT only when all the programs play nicely by the (same) rules.
By Tim, at
June 13, 2008 9:48 AM
It all looks good now (and I am using IE). Thanks.
I've just given up on the Aramaic (square script) font, and stick to transliteration. I'm sick of finding that words have changed places when I open up a Word doc that had been saved before. And if I save a Word doc as a pdf, often the Aramaic font flips around again. You don't get those problems with transliteration.
On a more substantial note, my interest was piqued by this topic - not only for the obvious and banal reasons - because I once tried to pursue the idea that one the sources in the David & Goliath story involved Goliath being struck in the goolies - a comic below-the-belt hit that fits well with David's general character in Samuel. I might revisit it.
By N T Wrong, at
June 14, 2008 10:47 AM
