Religion (1990) 20, 217-232

THE UTTERANCE FROM THE EAST:

THE SENSE OF HWT IN PSALMS 52:4,
9; 91:3*
Meir Lubetski

The purpose of this paper is to present alternative renditions of the

Biblical word hwt (hwwt) as it appears in Psalms 52:4, 52:9,91:3. Modern
dictionaries and commentators explain or translate the term variously as
‘threat’, ‘menace’, ‘ruin’, ‘destruction’ or ‘poisonous’. Some even try to
emend the word(s) in order to make the verse more intelligible. Yet,
contrary to the current explanation, a thorough linguistic analysis will
show that hwt (sg)lhwwt (pl) in these verses, and in others as well, should
be understood as ‘word(s)’ and in the derived meanings of ‘thought(s)’ or
‘incantations(s)‘.
Since many difficult or obscure Biblical words have, in many cases,
been clarified via comparative Semitic evidence, an attempt is made to
demonstrate how Biblical ‘hwt’ owes its origin to its sister vernaculars,
Akkadian awatu and Ugaritic hwt. The same word, hut, later surfaces in
the Arabic with the identical meaning. Although Arabic was written long
after the close of the Bible, its linguistically conservative nature makes it
valuable for our comparative study.
Accordingly, the paper advances a more exact meaning ofhwt in Psalms
based on the legacy ofawatulhwtlhtuwt in Semitic languages and literature:
Akkadian, Ugaritic, Qumran sectarian writings culminating with Arabic.
The proposed rendition of Biblical hmt allows for a more accurate and
coherent translation of the verses in the Psalms. Further, the implications
of the above explanation are not limited to Psalms but rather shed light
on all the verses in the Bible that contain this word.

The Biblical term hwt in its diverse declensions is perceived, variously, by

modern scholars as: ‘calamity’, ‘engulfing ruin’, ‘destruction’, ‘malice’, ‘per-
nicious thoughts or deeds’, ‘mischief’, ‘venomous’, or ‘destructive plague’.’
In interpreting Psalms, Dahood comments: ‘The substantive haww6t usually
rendered “ruin” [or] “destruction”, carries the nuance “poisonous, pernicious”
when describing tongue or speech’.*
Biblical dictionaries record the verses with the formation hwt and its
inflections under the stem hwh (*hwt). The Thesaurus of the Language of the
Bible suggests the following cognates: Arabic: dy ‘passion’; ‘desire’; + ,

*Dedicated to Professor Cyrus H. Gordon on reaching four score years.

0048-721X/90/030217 + 16$02.00/O 0 1990AcademicPressLimited

2 18 Utterance From the East

‘chasm’; ‘abyss ‘; ‘pit’; and Syriac: hawta, ‘pit’.3 The authors of the Thesaurus
write that the word is used only in poetry and they provide the following
meanings: ‘evil desire’; ‘destructive wickedness’; ‘calamity’.4 The Hebriiisches
und aramiiisches Lexikon lists all the above and offers additional explanations
of the term: ‘misfortune and ruin’; ‘threat’ or ‘menace’ when it is juxtaposed
with verbs denoting talking and thinking.’ Under the entry ho^n, Koehler and
Baumgartner list b”hawwito^, the noun with its pronominal suffix, but emend
it to b”ho^no^.6
The only proposal of a possible alternate understanding of hwt comes from
Pope in his explanation of Job 6:30 where he suggests a connection between
the Biblical hawwo^t and Ugaritic hwt as well as the Akkadian awatu.7 While
he explains hwt in Job 630 as ‘word’, he never sees fit to utilize this meaning
anywhere else, preferring the explanation of ‘destruction’ or ‘disaster’.
The consensus, then, is that the Biblical hwt etymologically corresponds to
the Arabic cognates and, based on its resemblance, denotes evil characteristics.
This relationship, however, is semantically superficial. There seems to be only
a perfunctory phonetic similarity between Biblical hwt and the suggested
Arabic cognates. The vowels in the Hebrew and in the Arabic do not match.
In addition, the meanings advanced so far do not provide a definitive meaning
of the Biblical verses. Accordingly, it makes sense to seek the source of the
word elsewhere.
In Akkadian vocabulary there is the word a-wa-tu which means, among
other things, ‘word’. The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary finds a-wa-tu as early as
Old Akkadian, Old Babylonian and Nuzi.g When an orthographical develop-
ment took place in the Akkadian scribal usage, the older a-zoa-tu shifted in
spelling to Neo-Babylonian a-ma-tu, but not in pronunciation. Since then, the
PI sign + ceased to denote the syllables wa, we, wi and wu. Instead, an
intervocalic w (a w between vowels) shifted to an m in the orthography,
without, however, affecting the pronunciation. Whereupon, the word
a- +- -tu (-a wa - tu ) in Hammurapi’s era was written a-ma-tu but pronounced
a-wa-tu. lo
Even though a change in spelling from a-wa-tu > a-ma-tu transpired in the
written Babylonian language, the diffusion of the term into other Semitic
vernaculars reflects the pronunciation with w. Thus Akkadian a-ma-tu corre-
sponds to Ugaritic hwt with ZV.
The Akkadian sign a- (in a-zeta-tu) stands for the syllable ha-, written h in
the consonantal alphabet of Ugarit. Ugaritic text UT 1189 records that the
Ugaritic consonant h (as distinct from b) is represented in Akkadian translitera-
tion by a vowel sign in the Mesopotamian syllabary.” Specifically the
Ugaritic letter h is equated with the Akkadian sign u’. This is in keeping with
the Amarna gloss ba-di-u’ ‘in his hand’ corresponding to Ugaritic bdh ‘in his
hand’. The topic has been treated a number of times by C. H. Gordon. l2 The
 A4. Lubetski 219

situation is paralleled in Greek orthography where ‘A-’ can stand for a- (with
smooth breathing) or for ha- (with rough breathing).
The Biblical term hamexit (with doubled -ww-) shows that it goes back to
hawwatu. By means of the dagef forte the Masoretes preserved the tradition
that the -w-, the middle radical, is doubled. There was no way for the Ugaritic
scribes, nor (as we shall show later) the Akkadian scribes, to indicate ortho-
graphically the gemination of the -w-. The pointing of the -u+ with the dages’
forte is consistent in every instance of hawmit, in all of its forms in Scripture. l3
The Sectarian writings of Qumran confirm the same tradition. The Thanks-
giving Hymns ’ * implicitly reflect the dages’forte through writing w twice so
that the spelling of the word in the Qumran scroll is hwwt in the singular, with
a double -w-, and hwwwt in the plural with a triple -w-. I5
What does the morphology of the word teach us? It cannot be determined
categorically whether Biblical hawmit was patterned according to the Ugaritic
precursor hwt or its Neo-Babylonian contemporary. Nevertheless, in our
instance, the scanty representation of the Ugaritic vowel system16 plus the
fact that Old Akkadian awatu is also the forerunner of the Ugaritic cognate,
favour a comparison of the Biblical hazuwht with the Neo-Babylonian amatu.
The Masoretic form suggests that though graphically expressed by various
combinations of cuneiform signs containing the m sound in Neo-Babylonian,
the Hebrew scribes correctly heard the w and therefore wrote a w, thus
transmitting the correct form of the word in utterance and in spelling. I7
Yet, the Hebrew records a geminated ww which has not hitherto been
accounted for in the Akkadian word. If, however, Biblical ha-wm-at parallels
Akkadian a-wa-tu, how are we to explain the doubling of the ~eiin the Hebrew
spelling?
We suggest that the Akkadian word was actually pronounced *aw-wa-tu.
The reason for not spelling it so is the plain fact that the cuneiform signs do
not provide any ate, syllable. I8 Thus it eliminates the possibility of recording
the doubling of the w in the Akkadian. While not transcribed, it must have
been pronounced as a double w (*ww). Accordingly, it is safe to assume that
it was the oral utterance which transmitted the doubling of w to the Hebrews
who in turn recorded it later in the consonantal system ofthe Dead Sea Scrolls,
thus helping us to explain the hitherto unaccounted-for factor in the cuneiform
system of writing. Assyriology has made an indelible impression on Semitic
philology because of its direct bearing on Old Testament vocabulary. Our
example reflects an opportunity for the Biblical heritage to repay a debt.
That a-wa-tu was indeed pronounced with a double ze, is supported by
another Semitic language, Arabic. Although Arabic was written long after the
close of the Old Testament, its linguistic conservatism makes it valuable for
comparative studies.
We find hwt in Arabic written and pronounced like the Biblical hawwat.
220 Utterance From the East

The Arabic-English Lexicon cites a+ in Arabic as a noun found already in

pre-classical Arabic. ” Arabic however, while corresponding to and cor-
roborating the Masoretic tradition, requires that we reckon with some generally
overlooked technicalities in the Mesopotamian syllabary whereby Old Baby-
lonian a-wa-tu and Neo-Babylonian a-ma-tu are to be normalized awwatu with
geminated -WW.
The meaning of the late Bronze Age Ugaritic hwt, and even more so the rich
nuances of Old Akkadian a-wa-tu, may assist us in clarifying Biblical passages
utilizing the Biblical form haww3tlhawwSt.
After Baa1 had slain Mot’s monsters, he is summoned to be punished by
Mot. The messengers deliver the following request:
thm. bn.ilm
&.hwt.ydd.bn il
&r
The message of the god Mot
The word of the dearest of El’s sons, the Hero.*’

The parallel tbmlhwt shows that hwt means word.*l The Ugaritic sense
helps explain a number of verses in the Bible.
In Proverbs it is said:
sidqaty”Sarfm ta@m
~behawtetcitbSged?myillGk?dG
The righteousness of the upright will deliver them [but] through the haw&it of the
betrayers they [the latter] shall be trapped.”
(Proverbs 11:6)

Since commentators were unaware of the evidence from the other Semitic
languages for the meaning of Biblical hawwct, the term remained obscure and
was given different interpretations which led to a variety of translations.23
However, if we accept the Ugaritic kinship with the Biblical hawwiat, then
what the verse says is that through their own ‘word’, betrayers are trapped.
The verse advises us that the traitor will be caught in his treachery through
his own word.
Haww&,24 used in this sense, refers to the ‘bad word’. It comes from the
‘betrayer’s’ mouth and perhaps the idea is that of being caught in a hunter’s
net since a simile of a trap is utilized.25
The Ugaritic texts may assist us in clarifying yet another enigmatic verse
in Psalms. A Ugaritic text poetically expresses the swift response of the god
by comparing it to the time it takes to utter a hwt ‘word’. The noun is employed
in the following couplets with a nominal suffix:
bph.rgm.lysa
b.$th. hwth. knp. srnl [by[ly,tbrj
 M. Lubetski 221

From his mouth the word had not gone forth

Nor from his lips his utterance
When BY broke the wings of &26

We find the same formation of hwt with a nominal suffix, third person,’ 7 in
Psalms which describes the wealthy and powerful man:

wayyibtah b”r6b ‘oSro^

y&iz behaww&
[He] trusted in the abundance of his wealth and he strengthened himself behaww&
(Psalm 52:9)

Biblical scholars, hard pressed to explain the idiom ‘and strengthened himself
b”haww&‘, suggest the alteration of both the spelling and the connotation of
the word. Gunkel proposed b”ho^n6.28 The idea is reflected in the Targum
which translates the word b”mCm&eyh, ‘with his money’.”
Perhaps our passage could be expounded without emendation. We suggest
that the verse discusses the mighty man who does not place his trust in God,
but rather relies upon the abundance of his wealth, and draws strength for
himself b”haww&o^ which can be explained literally as: ‘from his word’.30 The
wealthy man relies on his riches and builds himself up with words, that is, he
is arrogant, vain, insolent. The theme of wealth related to the impertinent use
of words is found also in Proverbs:

ta~“&n&ny”dabb~r rZ
wec&ryacaneh ‘a&t
The poor uses entreaties
But the rich answer impudently.
(Proverbs 18:23)

Accordingly, the words ‘“os’ro^’ and ‘hawwat? are complementary and the
phrase )i%< b”hawwW adds a dimension to the poetic description of the
independent, wealthy, arrogant individual.
The Vulgate reflects the same view of this word. Jerome translates
‘b”haww&o^’ as in vanitate sua which is ‘insincerity of the person’s words’.31
Therefore, the rich evildoer builds himself up with empty words, vanity.32
Yet it is possible that our verse parallels the words “oSr6 and haww&. We
dare to advance the thought that the Hebrew words “.?r, ‘wealth’, and ‘sjr, ‘a
rich man’, find their antecedents in two Egyptian words “S3, ‘be many’,
‘abundant’, and ‘S3-r, literally, ‘be manifold of utterance’; ‘chatter’.33 Con-
sequently, our first half of the couplet conveys the idea of a person who relies
upon the abundance of incessant talk, while the second half of it depicts the
chatterer as becoming audacious with his (vain) words.
222 Utterance From the East

While the sense of Ugaritic hwt can be felt in Biblical literature and
language, it is only in one aspect of the term: in the meaning of ‘word’. The
Akkadian a-wa-tu, however, with its richer nuances, left a more variegated
impact on the Bible. As listed in CAD, a-lela-tu (a-m&u) is ‘the spoken word’,
‘utterance’, ‘formula’ and its derived meanings are ‘thought’, ‘plan’ and
‘incantation’.34 To fulfill the function of thinking, it is related to the organs
of thought, the qereb the innermost being, the 1Zb the heart; as to carrying out
the function of expression, it is related to the peh the mouth, and the 1Gn the
tongue, or the S@?h the lip. We find, for example in Akkadian literary sources,
phrases such as:

a-wa-temes sadte ina libbika

you have false [words] thoughts in your heart.35
a-wa-at libbiS[u ana abi]& izzakarSum
he told his father the words [thoughts of his heart] .36

The Akkadian usage extends the meaning of the term a-wa-tu (hwt) from
‘word’ to ‘thought’ or ‘plan.’ This, in turn, helps us understand some additional
Biblical passages.
Psalm 52:4, which, in general, depicts the behaviour of the evildoer, utilizes
the following metaphor:

haww% ta&‘b leGnekZ

ketaCar m”lu~t& “Gh r”miyih
thy tongue deviseth hawwat
like a sharp razor working deceitfully.
(Psalm 52:4)

While “6&h is usually translated in the verse as a participle active verb, it

can be a noun in construct state followed by the object of the action in the
genitive. The Jewish grammarians, as a matter of fact, punctuated the nomen
regens “8&h with a $reh rather than a segO1, which indicates that they took the
word as being a noun in a construct state. This is not an isolated case; %.CZh
r”miydh appears, without doubt, as a participial noun in Psalm 101:7.
Further, it is the l?b, the heart, or the qereb, the midst, and not the L-i.?&,
the tongue, that is the organ used in the Biblical poetic metaphor to depict
the thinking or devising of thought. Therefore, the Targum, in apparent
rejection of the notion of a ‘tongue’ which ‘deviseth’, adds to the first colon
the additional word ‘in your heart’,37 thus pointing out that the domain of
thinking or devising is the inner self. Consequently, the Targum ties the
tongue to the second stich and translates it ‘liSEn+?k hZk ‘izmd h&i?@‘, ‘your
tongue is like a sharp cutting too1’.38 Indeed, depiction of the tongue as a
sharp tool appears several times in Psalms.3g As for hawzdt ta(&b, the
 M. Lubetski 223

formation is unique. Although not generally known, Biblical Hebrew has a

number of verses in which a noun may be in construct state before a finite
verb.“’ Syntactically, this construction is well-recognized in Akkadian. This
mode of expression, where a-wa-at served as a nomen regens, is found in the
Laws of Hammurapi; a-wa-at iq-bu-u’ la uk-ti-in rendered ‘words that he spoke
but had not proven’.41 The grammatical resemblance between the Biblical
expression haww6t ta(&b and awcit iqbfl suggests that the meaning of the
former is ‘words [thoughts] that you plan’. The sense, however, is ‘thoughts
[of evil] you plan’. It seems, therefore, that the poet drew upon the Akkadian
meaning of auat as well as its syntactic use.
Based on the above analysis, we venture to advance a three-cola division
of the verse with a new translation.

haww6t tahS6b
l”S8nekci k%far m”luttcii
“o^Sfh r”m+ih ‘.

words [of evil] you think [plan]

your tongue is like a sharpened razor
a designer [a worker] of deceit.

The master of deceit plans the words or thoughts inwardly in his heart and
they are carried out outwardly by a tongue which is as sharp as a razor.
The word pairs hawwat and l&%z in our verse are formed along the
Akkadian parallelism of awatu and li.&inu. In an Assyro-Babylonian conjur-
ation the petitioner describes the sorceress who plans her magic in her heart
and carries it out through her tongue and lip:

a-mat lemnuti HUL-tim-ia5 ina lib-bi-s’ri

ina (EME) liS&i-Sa ib-ba-nu-u ru-hu-u’-a
ina Sapti-Sa ib-ba-nu-u ru-su-C-a

In her heart the evil word [thought] [against] me

on her tongue a witchcraft is formed [against] me
on her lip a ghost is formed [against] me.42

The idea that haww6t reflects empty words literally, but evil thoughts figur-
atively, helps us clarify another verse in Psalms. The Psalmist laments the fact
that his ‘friend’ does not have a suitable word for him and says:

ki ‘@n b”pihhzl n”kiGuih

qirbcim hawwo^t

For the right [thing] is not in his mouth

[But the] haww6t are in their midst.43
(Psalm 5: 10)
224 Utterance From the East

Commentators have explained haww& in the verse as ‘wickedness’, ‘destruc-

tion’, ‘engulfing chasm’.44 However, based on our proposed meaning of
hazvw& we can explain that the reason for not having a true word in the mouth
is the presence of evil inward thoughts. Thus the parallelism consists of
balancing effect and cause.
In the same verse the translator of the Vulgate reflects this approach.
Qirbdm h.a.wwo^t is rendered COTeorum vanum est, literally, ‘their heart is empty’.
Since vanum refers to words or speech of no real significance,45 the translator
wanted to convey that their heart was filled with empty, hollow words. They
were insincere, vain. Similarly, the poet in the Qur’an, when describing the
panic-stricken expression of the evil ones during the Day of Judgment, uses
Arabic hawwat in the meaning of ‘empty words.’ He says:

and their hearts are empty words [or thoughts] .46

(Sura XIV:43)

The Akkadian evidence is not limited to hwt as ‘word’, ‘thought’ or ‘plan’,

but there is another usage as well. When the poet prays to God and asks for
protection, he requests:

Bbe$l k”n@eykd ‘efseh “adya”“bo*r haww6t

In the shadow of thy wings I will take refuge until haww6t passes.
(Psalm 57:2)

‘Words’ in certain circumstances symbolized for the Akkadian the incan-

tation. Awat is the ‘word of power” which appears in the magical texts
verbalized by the petitioner or the exorcist. In Maqlfi, the individual addresses
his prayer to a group of divinities of the Assyro-Babylonian pantheon to avert
a spell, using awat as the key word. Two such examples are:

adi a-mat am”ka$f@& 6

‘kaEapti-ias a-gab-bu-u
Until I say the ‘word’ [against] the sorcerer and the sorceress.47

a-mat-su-nu lip-pa-Sir-ma a-ma-ti

la ip-pa-&-Far

may their ‘word’ [the incantation of the sorcerer and sorceress] be nullified, but let
my ‘word’ not be nullified.48

While the Akkadian petitioner described in Maqlzi knows that he has been
bewitched and simply recites a well-known text for averting spells, our poet,
 M. Lubetski 225

the believer in the Almighty, seeks refuge in God through prayer until the
‘words’ pass by. It may well be that the poet is asking for shelter from slander,
but the use of the ya”“bo^r appears in Isa. 26:20 in connection with the words
@by and &n. The former is identified by Gordon as a demon in a conjur-
ation4’ and the latter is connected with Balaam who is invited to provoke
God’s anger on the Israelites in order to facilitate cursing them. Accordingly, it
makes sense to propose that ya”“bo^r hawwo^t deals with something more
insidious than slander, that is, an incantation.
A case for haww& as an incantation becomes stronger in light of an
examination of the Neo-Babylonian am& iq-bti in the Maqlzi. The petitioner
says:

a-mat a-gab-bu-u’ a-mat-su-nu

a-na pa-ni am&i-ias la i-par-riq

[As for] the ‘word’ which I utter,

may their ‘word’ not tindo my ‘word’.50

In another conjuration we find the same expression used with the Akkadian
lemlau, meaning evil word:

Sa’ iq-bu-u’ a-mrit lemnuti(m)-ia ki-ma

lipi lit-ta-tuk

The ‘word’ of evil which they utter against me

like tallow let it melt.51

The Biblical Psalmist declares his confidence in the divine protection which
shields those who rely on the Almighty from all sorts of misfortunes. He says:

ki hfi’ ya@kG mippah yaqziS

middeber hawwo^t

Because he will deliver you from the fowler’s

snare, middeber hawwo^t.
(Psalm 91:3)

The Psalmist enumerates the misfortunes and cites the pa& yaqli.? and deber
haw&. The phrases have been translated, respectively, as the ‘fowler’s snare’
and ‘noisome pestilence’, ‘deadly pestilence’ or ‘venomous substance’.52 The
generally accepted interpretations have, so far, never been challenged. Yet, if
we examine Rabbinic literature we find an entirely different perspective of the
verse. The Psalm is known by the Rabbis as the ‘Psalm of Plagues’. They
ascribe its composition to Moses whom they say was afraid of demons while
ascending Mount Sinai. According to the Sages, Moses would be saved by the
power of God’s name which would put to flight the harmful demons and
226 Utterance From the East

destroying angels. The Rabbis taught that trust in God assured Moses
deliverance from the fowler’s snare and:

mdbr Shw’ mby’ hwwt l’wlm

from the utterance which brings hwwt into the world.
(Midrash Rabbah Num. 12:3)

Moses was promised by God protection from physical and supernatural

powers. Thus, God in the guise of a fortress would save Moses from the trap
of the hunter, while the power of his Name would serve as an antidote to the
utterance of hwzert, meaning, in the Sage’s view, spell or incantation.53
The Rabbi provides a complete Midrashic scenario to a seemingly simple
verse. Yet, the springboard for this uggada may very well have been the term
hwwt which brought forth the association with demons and spells. Further-
more, the Rabbis’ explanation inadvertently sheds light on the idiom deber
hawwo^t. Usually, the Hebrew poet in the Bible employs the schema etymo-
logicurn, that is, the addition of an object in the form of a noun derived from
the same stem.54 In our case, however, the poet chose to remain with the form
deber hawzkt. This turn of speech more than just resembles its Akkadian
precursor; it is its exact translation. Accordingly, the verb which denotes
speaking, dbr, is strengthened by the means by which the action is performed,
‘words’, so that a parallelism is formed: Akkadian, a-wa-at iqbzi; Biblical, dbr
hwwt. The Sages’ insight gains credence from the Greek translation which
renders our phrase dbr hwwt as Xoyds ~apa~c&$s (kgos tarachGdZs).
While the standard English translation of the Septuagint offers ‘from every
troublesome matter’,j6 the literal rendition is ‘from every troubling word’
since 16gos primarily means ‘word’.57 But 16gos also has the connotation of
magic incantation, and very possibly this Greek word was chosen intentionally
to explain the phrase.58 If so, both the Sage and the Greek translators
perceived the idiom dbr hwwt to connote the saving from utterance of words,
that is, incantation. Not only did the Hebrews share it with Akkadian, but
the Greek translator reflects the same approach, which unfortunately was
blurred by the English translation of the Septuagint.
Our example is not the only one in Psalms. The poet, who is afllicted by a
serious illness, laments the eagerness of his foes to harm him. He says:

way”naqq%i m”baqZ napsi

w”dWfZ rG”Gtf dibbrii haww,o^t
Those who seek my life lay snares
They who desire my misfortune speak hawwo^t.
(Psalm 38: 13)
 M. Lube&i 227

Both the theme and its expression parallel the previously discussed verse. The
idiom pa4 yaqziS appears in the denominative way”naqqeSu^,5g the foes ‘lay
snares’, and deber hawwo^t corresponds to dibb”rC hawwo^t.
The similarity of dibb”ti hawwo^t to the Akkadian proverbial mode of speech
a-wa-at iqb& as well as the context, where the speakers of hawwo^t obviously
want to harm the poet, suggest the rendition of the phrase as ‘they uttered
spells’.
‘Speaking words’ was apparently in use throughout the ancient Near East
since we also find it employed by the Egyptians. The common phrase dd mdw
is literally ‘the speaking of words’ in Middle Egyptian.” Written fully
- zil
1-1 is found at the top of rubrica on papayri of magic medical content.61
Thus we find the same formula in a number of languages:

Akkadian: a-ma-at iqbu

Biblical: dbr hwwt
Egyptian: dd
- mdw.

They all had the literal meaning of ‘speaking words’ but also the connotation
of casting a spell or uttering an incantation.
The Biblical man is commanded not to resort to magic and magicians. The
prophets preached against the ancient cultic behaviour, yet when these
religious practices were on the wane, the belief in magic was not eradicated.
The great Biblical ideas were not able to uproot the superstitions which feed
on the fears of man. Officially outlawed, they were popularly practised. Hence
in our Biblical text we find remnants of the belief in incantations, often
stripped of their ‘demonology’; nevertheless, they retained their effect as an
evil power.
Some commentators in the Middle Ages sensed that our term connoted, in
general, evil and destruction. 62 Unable to determine the exact meanings or
the origin of the term, they advanced a generalized explanation and attempted
to apply it to all passages where the term is used. The modern commentators
who usually focus on philological analysis were led astray by a seemingly
corresponding Arabic stem which strengthened their prior notion of the term
depicting disaster and destruction. The few who recognized the possible
meaning of the term as ‘word’ failed to note the multifaceted aspects of
‘hawwat’ and therefore ignored the opportunities to explain the verse precisely.
Interestingly enough, it was the Masoretes who provided the clue to the
correct form of hawwat. They preserved the oral tradition perpetuated in the
recitation of Psalms in the days of the Temple and continued in the synagogue.
The preservation of the pronunciation of the word hawwat gave us the
opportunity to explore its Semitic heritage, thereby uncovering new readings
and explanations, grammatical and conceptual, unimaginable decades ago.
228 Utterance From the East

Acknowledgements
The inspiration for writing the above article came from a post-doctoral cuneiform
seminar, led by Professor Cyrus H. Gordon, Director of the Ebla Centre at New York
University. I wish to express my deepest appreciation to my mentor for sharing with
me his vast store of knowledge and wisdom.
I would like to express my appreciation to Dean Norman Fainstein of Baruch
College, CUNY and the Committee on Released Time who granted me time to write
this article.

NOTES
1 The quotations are from the following translations: King James Version, Revised
Standard Version, the International Critical Commentary, and the Anchor Bible
on Psalms. See Psalms 5:lO; 38:13; 52:4, 9; 57:2; 91:3.
S. J. Mitchell Dahood, Psalms 51-100, Anchor Bible, New York, Doubleday &
Company, 1968, p. 13.
Samuel E. Lijwenstamm (ed.), Thesaurus of the Language of the Bible, Jerusalem,
Bible Concordance Press, 1959-. p. 355.
Ibid.
Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, Hebriiisches und aramiiisches Le.&on
<urn Alten Testament, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1967, p. 232.
Ibid.
Marvin H. Pope, Job, Anchor Bible, New York, Doubleday & Company, 1965,
p. 55. It is mentioned also by Koehler and Baumgartner under the entry hmh,
p. 232.
8 It is worth noting that Dahood, in his marginal notes to Gordon’s UT on the
Ugaritic word hwt, cites Pope’s equation of Biblical hwwt in Job 6:30 with
Ugaritic hwt ‘word’. Mitchell Dahood, Ugaritic Hebrew Philology, Rome, 1965,
p. 56. It is strange, however, that even though he thought that Pope’s interpreta-
tion of hwt in Job was correct, he ignored this view in his extensive commentary
to Psalms. See his comments on Psalms 62:4 in Psalms 51-100, Anchor Bible,
p. 91.
9 Under the entry amatu. The Assyrian Dictionary, Chicago, Oriental Institute of
the University of Chicago, 1956-. Vol. II, p. 29. See also Wolfram von Soden,
Akkadisches Handwiirterbuch, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1959-1972, Vol. I, p. 89.
10 See David Marcus, A Manual of Akkadian, New York, University Press of
America, 1978, pp. 21, 94.
11 Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugatitic Textbook, Rome, Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965,
p. 244.
12 Ibid., 3.5, pp. 15-16.
13 The stem hwt appears in the Bible a total of 16 times. The w sign is always dotted
with the dages’forte. In Proverbs 11:6, the word may be perceived as in an
absolute form and not as in a construct state. See the KJV and the RSV as they
appear side by side in the Interpreter’s Bible. For the possible explanation of the
diacritical marks of hwt in absolute form, see Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, edited
by E. Kautzsch and revised by A. E. Cowley, Oxford, The Clarendon Press,
1910, 80f.
14 The system of spelling in the Dead Sea Scrolls is later than the spelling of the
Masoretic text. See Cyrus H. Gordon, The Ancient Near East, New York, Norton
and Company, 1965, p. 303.
 M. Lubetski 229

15 For singular spelling see The Thanksgiving Hymns, in E. L. Sukenik (ed.), The
Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, The Magnes Press, 1955,
Col. II, line 6; Col. II, line 36; Col. V, line 27. For the plural spelling see above,
Col. III, line 25; Col. III, line 38.
16 Cyrus H. Gordon, UT, Chapter IV, p. 17.
17 This is not the only case of postvocalic m pronounced in Hebrew as tp~. The name
of the ninth month in Akkadian is Kislimu which enters Hebrew as K&J. Note
also the Hebrew spelling of the name Amy1 Mrdk = Aw?l-Marduk, with Ato8
written A-mi-il.
18 RenC Labat, Manuel d’l&graphie Akkadiene, Paris, Librarie Orientaliste, Paul
Geuthner, S. A., 1976, p. 250.
19 Edward William Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, London, William & Norgate,
1893, Vol. I, part 8, p. 2905. Note the references to the Qames which includes
pre-Islamic roots. See also, al Firuzabadi (Muhammad ibn Yacqub), Kamoos or
Boundless Ocean Words, A Great Arabic DictionaT, Constantinople, 1848, the

entry $si.

20 Cyrus H. Gordon, UT, Text 67, Tablet I, lines 12-14.

21 Ibid., #756.
22 See the translations of JPS; KJV; RSV; ICC; Anchor Bible; to our verse, but
note Rashi’s geminated spelling hwwt, and his suggestion of changing the order
of the words in the stich.
23 JPS: ‘crafty device;’ KJV: ‘naughtiness’; RSV: ‘lust’; ICC: ‘desire’; Anchor
Bible: ‘cupidity’.
24 Proverbs 10:3 advises that: ‘The Lord will not let the soul of the righteous starve
but the hawwd: of the wicked he will cast away’. Here, too, the word hwt was
translated freely. The two stichs of the verse may seem unrelated because one
deals with ‘soul starvation’ and the other mentions the ‘word of the wicked’, yet
the connection between soul starvation and words is found in Amos 8: 11, where
the prophet says: ‘not a famine of bread, not a thirst for water, but of hearing
words of the Lord’. Thus it is the word of God that the righteous yearns for as
opposed to the word of the wicked which God casts away. For similar examples,
see Is. 32:6; Ps. 107:9; Proverbs 27:7.
25 Additional examples of the ‘trap’ metaphor juxtaposed to the ‘hwt’ are found in
Psalms 38: 13, 91:3 which will be discussed below.
26 Cyrus H. Gordon, UT, Aqht, lines 141-142. See also lines 113-114, 127-128.
27 The word is also found in Ugaritic literature with a pronominal suffix, first
person. Ibid., Text 51, lines 2 and 15. The Ugaritic formation hwty precisely
corresponds to the Biblical QVe lhwty in Job 6:2. By explaining the term as ‘my
word,’ the entire verse becomes more meaningful. Job is requesting that his
vexation and his words be weighed. He claims they would be heavier than the
sand of the seas. It makes more sense to explain that his passions and ‘words’
be put on the scales rather than his passions and the calamity brought on him
by heaven.
28 H. Gunkel, Die Psalmen, Handkommentar zum Alten Testament, Gottingen, 1926,
p. 231.
29 Targum to Psalm 52:9. Similarly, Saadya Gaon suggested the Judeo-Arabic
rendition w”t,: bm’lh, ‘he will be strengthened with his wealth’. Saadyah ben
Joseph, Psalms, edited by Joseph Kapah (New York, Alexander Kohut Memorial
Foundation, 1965) (Hebrew). .
230 Utterance From the East

30 The proposition 6 means ‘from’ in this text. Gordon, UT, 10:5.

31 P. G. W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1982,
p. 2010. See the meaning of the word vZnit&-atis, lb.
32 Note also the Septuagint’s translation mataiott% which means vanity and in
certain formations ‘idle talk’ and ‘talking idly’. Henry George Liddell and Robert
Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1976, p. 1084.
33 Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 3rd edn, London, Oxford University
Press, 1973, p. 558; p. 217. See also Adolf Erman and Hermann Grapow,
Wcrterbuch der aeDptischen Sprache (Berlin, 1982), Vol. I, p. 228. Note the form

‘s3-3-r3 ,%Ta, ‘talkative’. The hieroglyph r T(originaliy r3) means

‘mouth’, ‘utterance’, ‘spell’, and the determinative ‘man with hand to mouth’

$& , describes ‘speaking’. Ember suggests for the Egyptian word ‘s3 ‘be

numerous’; ‘rich’, with the Hebrew and the Arabic cognates: ‘aFar ‘be rich’,
gatara ‘be luxuriant’, respectively. Aaron Ember, Egypto-Semitic Studies, Leipzig,
Asia Major G.M.B.H., 1930, p. 34.
34 CAD, II, pp. 29-30.
35 CAD, II, p. 34, taken from The El-Amarna Tablets, J. A. Knudtzon, Die El-
Amarna Tafeln, Vorderasiatische Bibliothek, 162:36.
36 CAD, II, p. 34, taken from Revue d’asgriologie et d’archiologie orientale, 46, 90:32.
37 Targum to Psalms, 52:4. The Targum translated hwt with the Aramaic word
‘trgwSt’ which Jastrow translates as ‘noise’, ‘noisy crowd’, ‘riot.’ Marcus
Jastrow, A Dictionary for the Targumim, The Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and
the Midrashic Literature, New York, Pardes Publishing House, 1950, p. 134.
Whatever the meaning of hwt, it does not alter the fact that the Targum favours
the division of our verse into three cola.
38 Ibid.
39 Psalms 57:5, 64:4.
40 The Psalmist says, ‘make us happy [for as long a time] k@‘mo^t “inn?tZnzi’ ‘as the
days when you afflicted us’. The construct y”m8t depends upon the perfect
“inn~tcinzi which stands in nomen rectum position. (Ps. 90:15.) It is also found in
Ugaritic poetry, ait it&, ‘the two wives [that] I have wed’. ( UTText 52, line 64.)
See also UT, paragraph 8.16. Pertinent to Biblical Hebrew is n. 1 to the above
paragraph.
41 The Code of Hammurapi, law, #4. The Hammurapi idiom a-wa-at iqbii generally
refers to testimony. A-wa-at is perhaps the feminine plural construct *(h)awwlit =
hawwo^t. The term connotes an incantation in Maqlzi (see below).
42 Meier, MaqlO (Archivfu’r Orientforschung, Beheft 2, 1937), Tablet III, lines 90-
92.
43 The tenses of the stichs do not seem to correspond. The first half is written in
the singular and the second half in the plural. See Dahood’s explanation in Psalms
r-50, p. 34.
44 See above, note 1.
45 Glare, p. 2010, 2b, 4. The word is related to vZn&ire ‘to use empty words’. See
also the entry v&&ire and vanus-a-urn in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short,
A Latin Dictionary, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1966, p. 1957. The Septuagint
translates it fi KapSia. onirc;jv pa-&a which means ‘their heart is
empty’. Mataia is ‘vain’, ‘empty’, but in certain formations ‘of words’. Liddel
and Scott, p. 1084. The Greek words denoting ‘empty’ have a secondary
 M. Lubetski 231

connotation of being ‘empty of words’, ‘empty words’, ‘empty talk’. Similarly,

KEVcryyilS means ‘emptying the vessels of the body’, and as
,KEVCf)‘OpiCt ‘empty talk’. Ibid., p. 937.
46 The commentator to the verse adds ‘and their hearts become empty of all hope
or intelligence as the physical heart might become empty to blood when the
circulation stops’. A. Yusuf Ali, The Hob Q&an: Translation and Commentary,
p. 632, note 1923. Other Arab dictionaries cite additional examples. The word
as it entered the Arabicvocabulary seems to lose the rich nuances it had formerly.
Thus Wahrmund finds our word only in the meaning of ‘to call’, ‘to shout’. Adolf
Wahrmund, Handwiirterbuch der neu-arabischen und deutschen Sfrache, Giessen.
J. Ricker’sche Buchandlung, 1898, p. 1134.
47 Maqlzi, I, 68.
48 Ibid., I, 70.
49 A conjuration from Ebla has the word ha-ba-yha-bi which Gordon identified as a
demon. His findings are summarizedYin an article in Ugarit-Forschungen, 18,
1987. The text of the conjuration appears in Dietz Otto Edzard, ARET V
Hymnen, Beschworungen und Verwandtes aus dem Archiv L 2769, Missione
Archeologica Italiana in Siria, 1984, p. 17. In Northwest and East Semitic
incantation texts the exorcist had to stop not only the word but also the organs
that assist the magician to express his word, the tongue and the teeth. The
conjuration binds not only the demon, but also the tongue and the teeth. The
Psalmist asks God to shelter him from the hwt, the razor-sharp tongue, and the
teeth which are likened to spears and arrows. True, the text discusses foes.
However, does not the text provide us with a linguistic linkage, while the diabolic
content is suppressed and sublimated?
50 Maqlu^, Tablet I, line 7 1.
51 Ibid., line 32.
52 KJV and RSV to the respective verses.
53 See also Jastrow, p. 337.
54 For example, Psalms 14:5; Is. 24:22, 35:2, 42:17; and many more. Pertinent to
our discussion is mdbr dbr, Is. 58:13, where the prophet uses the normal noun
rather than hwt which is normal in Akkadian.
55 See the Greek translation to Psalms, 91:3.
56 Ibid. See the English translation. The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament and
Apoc@ha, edited by Charles Lee Brenton, Grand Rapids, Mich., Zondervan,
1978.
57 Liddel and Scott, pp. 1057-1058.
58 Ibid., p. 1058.
59 Verbs and participles are often denominative. Similarly, the hapax legomenon
fho^t’tzi seems to be derived metaplastically from the root ‘hzert’. See also the
explanation of Ibn-Ezra and Rashi who connect the root with the Hebrew
h-mm-t. The verse would then be rendered, ‘How long will you speak words about
a man?’ Obviously this refers to slander. Cassuto suggests another Ugaritic stem,
bht. See Moshe D. Cassuto, The Goddess Anat, Jerusalem, Mossad Bialik, 1953,
p. 88. See also Spr Z&J&, Jerusalem, Israel Society for Biblical Research, 1952,
pp. 297-298.
60 Gardiner, 306.
61 Written in syncopated script, it appears also at the beginning of speeches on
temples and tomb walls. Ibid.
62 For example, Kimhi’s explanation of the verse. David ben Joseph Kimhi, Spr
H?r@m, Berlin, 1847, p. 78.
232 Utterance From the East

MEIR LUBETSKI is an Associate Professor at Baruch College C.U.N.Y. He

is the co-author of Building a Judaica Library Collection and has contributed
several articles on biblical and related topics to academic journals. He has
also presented a number of papers at scholarly conferences.

Baruch College, The Gig University of New York, 17 Lexington Avenue, New
York, NY 10010, U.S.A.