Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ḎBḤ_1 ‘cut the throat, slay, slaughter; to sacrifice’ ↗ ḏabaḥa
▪ ḎBḤ_2 ‘disease in the throat, angina’ ↗ḏabaḥa
▪ ḎBḤ_3 ^†‘flood channels’ : ?
▪ ḎBḤ_4 ^†‘a certain plant; or truffle’: ?

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘flood channels; a disease in the throat; to cut the throat, to slay, a butchered animal, to sacrifice, an animal fit or prepared for slaughter or sacrifice’

Disambiguation according to Badawi2008. But since all values can be thought to derive from one (see DISC) and Sem cognates do not contradict this, all will be treated in the ↗ḏabaḥa entry.

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See ↗ ḏabaḥa.

▪ The Sem evidence does not suggest more than one basic value. But Badawi 2008 gives three values of √ḎBḤ in ClassAr: ‘1. flood channels; 2. a disease in the throat; 3. to cut the throat, to slay, a butchered animal, to sacrifice, an animal fit or prepared for slaughter or sacrifice’.
▪ DRS 4 (1993)#ḎBḤ treats ‘disease in the throat, angina’ as belonging to ‘to cut the throat, sacrifice’ (cf. Lane: ‘a disease, or pain, in the throat which sometimes kills, blood which chokes and kills, an ulcer that comes forth in the throat or fauces of a man […], an ulcer that appears in that part, obstructing it, and stopping the breath, and killing’). No mention of ‘flood channels’ (but Lane has, as one value of maḏbaḥ, also ‘a trench in the earth, […] such as is made by a torrent, the channel of a torrent […]’).
▪ Apart from the values mentioned so far, Lane has also the items ḏubaḥ ‘a certain plant which ostriches eat’, and ḏibaḥ ‘a species of […] truffle, of a white colour’.¹
▪ The earliest meaning may have been ‘to cut lengthwise, split’, then transferred to trenches/channels made in the earth by torrents etc., and also specialised as ‘to cut the throat’, hence also ‘disease in the throat’.

1. Cf. Freytag1838: ḏibaḥ ‘species tuberum terrestrium’, ḏubaḥ ‘idem, tum Pastinaca silvestris et planta alia cuius pastu gaudent struthiocameli’.

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ḏabaḥ‑ ذبح , a (ḏabḥ)

√ḎBḤ

vb., I

to kill (by slitting the throat); to slaughter, butcher; to massacre; to murder, slay; to sacrifice, offer up, immolate (an animal) – WehrCowan1979.

▪ Militarev/Stolbova suggest that the word derives from Sem *ḏ˅b˅ḥ‑ ‘to slaughter; to sacrifice’, from AfrAs *ǯ˅b˅ḥ‑ ‘to make a sacrifice’.

▪ eC7 The Koran has both the vb. I ḏabaḥa ‘to slay’ (2:21 la-ʔuʕaḏḏibanna-hū ʕaḏāban šadīdan ʔaw la-ʔaḏbaḥanna-hū), ‘to ritually sacrifice’ (2:67 ʔinna ’ḷḷāha yaʔmuru-kum ʔan taḏbaḥū baqaratan), the vb. II ḏabbaḥa ‘to be in the habit of slaughtering, to slaughter in number’ (28:4 yastaḍʕifu ṭāʔifatan min-hum yuḏabbiḥu ʔabnāʔa-hum wa-yastaḥyī nisāʔa-hum), and the n. ḏibḥ ‘animal earmarked or fit to be sacrificed, a sacrificial animal’ (37:107 wa-faday-nā-hu bi-ḏibḥin ʕaẓīmin).
▪ Attestations in Polosin 1995 (ḏabaḥa, ḏābiḥ) do not alter the picture.

▪ Bergsträsser1928 (for Ar ḏibḥ): Akk zību, Hbr zéḇaḥ, Aram deḇḥā, Gz zebḥ ‘sacrifice (n.)'
▪ DRS 4 (1993): Akk zebū, Ug dbḥ, Hbr zābaḥ, Pun zbḥ, BiblSyr dᵉbaḥ, Mand dba, SAr ḏbḥ, Gz zabḥa ‘égorger, immoler’, Te zabḥa ‘dépouiller, écorcher (une vache)’. – Akk zib ‘(offrande alimentaire)’, Ug dbḥ, Hbr zebaḥ, EmpAram dbḥ, JP dibḥā, Syr debḥā, Ar ḏibḥ ‘sacrifice sanglant’, SAr ḏbḥ, Gz zebḥ ‘victime sacrificielle’; – Ug mdbḥt, Pun mdbḥ, Hbr mizbēᵃḥ, EmpAram mdbḥ, Syr madbəḥā, Ar maḏbaḥ, SAr mḏbḥt ‘autel à sacrifies’; Mand madbha, madba ‘sanctuaire’; – Ar ḏibḥaẗ, ḏubḥaẗ ‘douleur à la gorge, angine’.
▪ In addition to the Sem cognates (given as in DRS), Militarev/Stolbova 2007 #1246 mention (EChad) Bidiya ziib ‘to make a sacrifice before eating the new corn’, and (LECush) Som dabaaḥ ‘to slaughter’, ? Eg dbḥ ‘to beg for, request’ (dbḥt-ḥtp ‘the requisite offerings, full menu of offerings’).

▪ DRS 4 (1993) mentions that Cohen1969 »rapproche un certain nombre de racines cham.-sém. dont la constitution phonique présente des analogies avec celle de ḏbḥ signifiant ‘tuer, abattre, etc.’«, but adds, rightly, that none of these show »correspondances rigoureuses«—they are too far-fetched.
▪ Militarev&Stolbova2007 #1246 reconstruct Sem *ḏ˅b˅ḥ‑ ‘to slaughter; to sacrifice’, EChad *ʒiHib‑ (metath.) ‘to make a sacrifice before eating the new corn’, LECush *ǯabaḥ‑ ‘to slaughter’, all from AfrAs *ǯ˅b˅ḥ‑ ‘to make a sacrifice’.
▪ For ḏibḥaẗ / ḏubḥaẗ ‘angina; diphtheria’ beloning, or not belonging, to ḏabaḥa, cf. DISC in ↗ḎBḤ.

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► ḏabbaḥa, vb. II, to kill, slaughter, butcher, massacre, murder: ints.

► ḏabḥ, n., slaughtering, slaughter: vn. I.
► ḏibḥ, n., sacrificial victim, blood sacrifice:.
► ḏibḥaẗ, var. ḏubḥaẗ, n.f., angina (med.); diphtheria: probably related to the complex of ‘slaughtering’ via the idea of ‘cutting the throat’. | ḏ. ṣadriyyaẗ / fuʔādiyyaẗ, n., angina pectoris (med.).
► ḏabbāḥ, adj., slaughtering, killing, murdering: ints.; n., slaughterer, butcher: n.prof.
► ḏabīḥ, adj., slaughtered : quasi-PP.
► ḏabīḥaẗ, pl. ḏabāʔiḥᵘ, n., slaughter animal; sacrificial victim, blood sacrifice: f. of quasi-PP; sacrifice, immolation; offering, oblation: transferred from the object to the act of sacrificing.
► maḏbaḥ, pl. madābiḥᵘ, n., slaughterhouse; altar (Chr.): n.loc.
► maḏbaḥaẗ, n.f., massacre, slaughter, carnage, butchery: n.loc.f.

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