I've been arguing that MELEK means "king" and not "king or queen." It's interesting that Melek is also a Hebrew name for boys. Hebrew girls are evidently not named MELEK although I have not researched that particular issue with any semblance of thoroughness yet.
Here are some links that appear to support my position on MELEK:
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/42_lesson01.html
From this site: "Every noun is either masculine or feminine. An obvious masculine noun is אישׁ (iysh - man) and an obvious feminine noun would be אשׁה (iyshah - woman). As can be seen in this example the suffix ה (ah) can be added to a masculine noun to make it feminine. Another example is the word מלך (melek - king), a masculine noun whereas מלכה (mal'khah - queen) is the feminine form."
http://biblesuite.com/hebrew/4428.htm (See BDB at this link)
4 comments:
just so you know this is a misrepresentation of my position.I never said that the word means kings or queens.I am aware that 'melek' means king.I said that the masculine can be employed as a generic.
Technically, I did not attribute that position to you, but the term "means" can signify different things. You have said that Melek functions as a generic term for kings and queens. However, Hebrew has a word for queen. Why employ a generic for Melek when there is already a word for queen in Hebrew? The same principle applies to Greek. Greek has a term for king, queen and a general word that denotes a "ruler." Why employ "king" as a generic term for "king and queen"? I've read many Greek lexicons and study articles. So far, not one of them supports this idea.
because 'queen'would exclude males a generic would be inclusive of both kings and queens.
Okay, but I still have trouble seeing why a strict conceptual and manifest linguistic distinction can't remain between kings and queens. The word "ruler" could function as the generic term. There is no need to use "queen" (which normally excludes kings) as a stand-in generic term for both kings and queens.
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