to recover (min maraḍ from an illness) – WehrCowan1976.
▪ The grouping in DRS suggests that ²balla belongs to a group of lexemes that are based on the idea of *‘mixing’. If this is correct, ‘to recover (from illness)’ may originally be *‘to recover due to fresh (= wet, moistened, or mixed, variegated?) pasture, or to a fresh, moist breeze’. One of the closest cognates would be Tham h-bl ‘recovery’ (*Š-stem, caus., *‘to cause to be well’).
▪ Hava1899: †balla (u, bilāl) ‘to give s.th., be beneficent’; †balla (a, balal, bilāl) ‘to enjoy (bi- s.th.), to obtain; to know s.th.’, cf. also the expr. †ballat yadāka bih ‘you have obtained it’; †balla (balal, balālaẗ, bulūl) ‘to enjoy (bi‑ the company of s.o.)’. – The relation to ↗¹balla ‘to moisten’ becomes clearer in lexemes like †balīl, balīlaẗ ‘cold and damp wind’ that combine ‘moisture’ and refreshing coolness, or also in †ballaẗ ‘freshness of youth’.
▪ DRS 2 (1994) #BLL-1 Akk balālu ‘mélanger; allier, brasser’; Hbr bālal ‘mélanger (avec de l’huile)’; Aram bal ‘mélanger’; Ar balla ‘mouiller, tremper, humecter’;1
SAr bll ‘irriguer’; Te bälla ‘mélanger’, bällälä ‘changer la couleur’; Pun bll: espèce de sacrifice.2
– Akk ballu ‘fourrage mélangé’; Hbr bᵊlīl, TalmAram bᵊlīlā ‘méteil’; Ar balla ‘désaltérer, apaiser’, bill ‘convalescence’; Tham (*Š-stem) h-bl ‘guérison’; Ar balāl ‘bien’, bullaẗ pl. bilāl) ‘bien, bienfait’; SAr bll ‘bien (?)’. -2–6 […]3
►ballala, vb. II, ↗¹balla. ►ʔaballa, vb. IV, = I: *Š‑stem. ►taballala, vb. V, and ĭbtalla, vb. VIII, ↗¹balla. ►ball, n., ↗¹balla. ►bill, n., recovery, convalescence, recuperation: vn. I. ►billaẗ, balal, balīl ↗¹balla. ►balīlaẗ, n.f., (EgAr) porridge made of wheat or maize with milk and sugar: Does balīlaẗ belong here (perh *‘meal that helps to recover, or is given to s.o. recovering, from an illness’), or rather to ¹balla ‘to moisten, make wet’, or is it perh. akin to the *‘mixed offering’ of Pun bll (see above, section COGN)? ►ʔiblāl, n., recovery, convalescence, recuperation: vn. IV. ►taballul, mablūl, muballal, mubtall ↗¹balla. For other items of the root, cf. ↗¹balla and ↗EgAr balīlaẗ, as well as, for the overall picture, ↗√BLː (BLL).