▪ According to Klein1987, postBiblHbr
širbēḇ ‘
1 to stretch out, prolong, enlarge;
2 to draw down, let down’
1
is from a root ŠRBB ‘to stretch out, prolong, let hang down, let down’ that is borrowed from Aram
šarbēḇ ‘to prolong, let hang down, let down’), a
šap̄ʕēl (archaic Š-stem) of √RBB, »yet not in the sense ‘to grow, be great’, but in the meaning ‘to be low’, which occurs only in Akk
šurbub ‘to lower, make low, to humble’«.
2
Should Ar
ĭšraʔabba ~
ĭšrābba be akin to these items rather than to
šariba ‘to drink’? In this case, its closest relatives in Ar would be ↗
rabb ‘lord, master’ and ↗
rabā (√RBW) ‘to grow, increase’.
▪ The theme of ‘hanging down’ or ‘letting hang down’ (= [v2] of Š-RBB in Aram and lHbr, present also in Akk
šurbubu) returns also in two other words that are usually derived from to
šariba ‘to drink’, namely ↗
šārib ‘moustache’ and
šarrābaẗ ‘tassel’. Are these, literally, *‘the hanging ones’ rather than *‘the drinkers’?