The contexts of the two biblical attestations of the lexeme, however, show that it was actually the tool of a carpenter. Third, it investigates the use of the root עצד in the Gezer calendar and concludes, based on considerations of agricultural practices in antiquity, that Gezer’s עצד is better connected with Aramaic חצד than with the Hebrew מעצד in light of this, it raises once more the long-debated question of the dialect of the Gezer calendar.Īfter listing cognates in Mishnaic Hebrew, Ugaritic, Arabic, and Geʿez, HALOT defines מעצד as “blacksmith’s tool.” BDB defines the word as “an axe,” though the first evidence cited (from Arabic and Geʿez) indicates that the root עצד is associated with agricultural work.
First, it argues that the correct meaning of Hebrew מעצד is “adze.” Second, it pleads for systematic but judicious use of Mishnaic Hebrew in the lexicography of Biblical Hebrew. The purpose of the present note is three-fold. Fortunately, in this case, we have the use of the garzen in the Siloam Inscription as well, which also talks about “hewing” (חצב) with a garzen, and that text is so embedded in its physical context that it is possible to infer what tool the text is referring to. For example, Isaiah mentions (10:15) the garzen in a rhetorical question: “Shall the garzen be glorified more than the one who hews with it?” The lexical information which can be gleaned from this verse is quite spare. Since the biblical texts do not include agricultural manuals or craftsmen’s catalogs, some words make their only appearances in highly allusive contexts, where there is little to indicate what object the word actually referred to. The Hebrew Bible contains dozens of terms for tools which must have been common words for speakers of ancient Hebrew, but which present particular challenges for lexicographers of this dead language.
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