B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Does the word התש exist?
According to my dictionary, it is a verb that means "to weaken." I tried to look it up, but I can't find it.

Thanks.

I checked all the standard lexicons of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish lit, and the root doesn't exist. The three letters don't occur in Tanakh. The only place I could find it was in a dictionary of modern Hebrew, and then only in a noun form. What dictionary are you using?

Kenneth Greifer wrote:Does the word התש exist?
According to my dictionary, it is a verb that means "to weaken." I tried to look it up, but I can't find it.

Thanks.

I looked up in my dictionary, and it’s not there.

I also didn’t find it in an electronic search of Tanakh.

Tanakh contains only a subset of the language that was spoken before the Babylonian Exile, as a result there is the possibility that it existed, but not recorded. But today we have no record of its existence in Biblical Hebrew.

Modern Israeli Hebrew is a different language, different vocabulary, different grammar, so it’s possibly a modern word.

Karl W. Randolph.

Kirk and Karl,

I use the "Compendious Hebrew-English Dictionary" by Dvir Publishing Company. It's copyright date is written in Hebrew, so I am not sure what it says. It says it was compiled by Reuben Avinoam (Grossman) with H. Sachs and then revised and edited by M.H. Segal.

I like it because it has little symbols next to words to show if they are biblical, talmudic, medieval, or modern.

It also has the word תש which it says means "weak" or "feeble."

My dictionary seems a little strange because it seems to list words that might not exist and it says they are Biblical.

It is from the post-biblical (Mishnaic, from Aramaic?) תשש. It is a common and useful root now in spoken Hebrew: תשוּש, 'tired, fatigued, listless'; מלחמת התשה, 'war of attrition'.
Possibly related to the ישיש of Job 15:10.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Ernest Klein's A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English has התש meaning 'he weakened, enfeebled'.
Klein classifies words as Biblical, Post Biblical Hebrew, Medieval Hebrew, New Hebrew and Foreign Word. He classifies this word as Medieval Hebrew.

Klein also has תש meaning 'weak' as Post Biblical Hebrew.

Thank you, all of you, for looking those words up. I wonder why my dictionary has so many non-Biblical words listed as Biblical. Maybe the words were just labelled wrong.

Steve, that etymological dictionary sounds very useful and helpful. I wonder if a library where I live has that.

Both תַּשׁ and הֻתַּשׁ are verbal forms of the root תשש, the first is a qal form as in תַּש כּוֹחוֹ, 'he lost his vigor', and the other, הֻתַּשׁ is in the הופעל hufal form.
Klein is right that the root is post-biblical.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Thanks Isaac,
Klein says that התש is the hiphil of תשש, and he says תַּש is an adjective, participle of תשש.

Kenneth,
My city library does not have the book, but the local university library has it.
http://elibrary.wayne.edu/record=b2371983~S47

You may be able to request that your local library get a copy.
ISBN 965-220-093-X