Browsing by Author "Joubert, Marcus"
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- ItemTowards the concept of praise in the Hebrew bible(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-12) Joubert, Marcus; Van der Merwe, C. H. J. ; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Ancient Studies.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates the semantics of three verbs that refer to the concept "praise" in the Hebrew Bible, namely, הלל, ידה, ברך. These three verbs are considered the most typical verbs used in Biblical Hebrew to express the act of praising God. The problem that this study seeks to address is the following: what are the conceptual differences between these three verbs? The extant literature treats these verbs as (near-)synonyms: Lexicographical descriptions on the one hand, however, obscure the semantic overlap of the verbal set by assigning similar glosses to all three verbs e.g., ‘to praise’, ‘to glorify’, ‘to thank’. Theological reference works, on the other hand, do not convincingly present the similarities and contrasts of the three verbs so as to assess the extent of their near-synonymy. More broadly, previous scholarship has not attempted to investigate, in a systematic manner, the concept ‘to praise’ holistically (i.e., the different verbal lexemes that are used to express this concept). This study adopts insights from cognitive linguistics (CL), which could be regarded as a refinement of historical-philological semantics, to address the question of near-synonymy of this verbal set. These insights enable us to establish the more and less prototypical senses of each of the three verbs, as well as determining the extent of their overlap in meaning. Ultimately, although this study only investigates three verbs of praise, it represents a step towards more nuanced understanding of the concept of praise in Biblical Hebrew.