Etymology
The text of the Torah gives two different etymologies for the name of Reuben, which textual scholars attribute to different sources - one to the Yahwist and the other to the Elohist; the first explanation given by the Torah is that the name refers to God having witnessed Leah's misery, in regard to her status as the less-favourite of Jacob's wives, implying that the etymology of Reuben is that it derives from raa beonyi, meaning he has seen my misery; the second explanation is that the name refers to Leah's hope that Reuben's birth will make Jacob love her, implying a derivation from yeehabani, meaning he will love me. Another Hebrew phrase to which Reuben is particularly close is ra'a ben, meaning behold, a son, which is how classical rabbinical literature interpreted it, although some of these sources argue that Leah was using the term to make an implied distinction between Reuben and Esau, his uncle. Some scholars suspect that the final consonant may originally have been an l (similar to an n in the early Hebrew alphabet), and Josephus rendered the name as Reubel; it is thus possible that Reuben's name is cognate with the arabic term Ra'abil, meaning wolves.
Read more about this topic: Reuben (Bible)
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (16881744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of style. But while stylederiving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tabletssuggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. Taste: The Story of an Idea, Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)