Bibliotheca Polyglotta

1a board, blackboard; b slate; c tablet; d slab; 2 plate, sheet; 3a pane; b plank, board; c panel; d small board, signboard; 4 shoulder blade, scapula – WehrCowan1976

conc

▪ lawḥ represents one of at least three main values found in the root ↗LWḤ: (a) *‘to become visible, flash’ (↗¹lāḥa); (b) *‘to scorch, singe, sear, burn, parch, desiccate, wither, lose weight, get thinner’ (↗²lāḥa); and (c) *‘board, tablet, plank; shoulder blade’. The latter is the only value that has cognates in Sem.
▪ According to Jeffrey1938, the word is borrowed from Aram lūḥā ‘id.’, but it is widely attested in Sem (Akk, Ug, Hbr, Aram, Soq – see below, section COGN), so it may be genuine, directly from Sem *lawḥ ‘board, table, plank’. (Pennacchio2014: 126 tends to agree with Jeffrey, though.)
▪ ClassAr lexicographers see lawḥ related to ↗¹lāḥa ‘to become visible, flash’ as it can also mean (in the translation of BK1860) ‘tout ce qui, par sa surface plate et polie, reflète la lumière’, assuming a semantic transition *‘board, plank > to be(come) visible, appear’; but this would need to be corroborated by broader and more reliable evidence—after all, the semantic “bridge” may be a homogenizing construction made by lexicographers to explain diversity within the root and give it more coherence.
▪ In a similar vein, Gabal2012: 2013 suggested a derivation of all values in √LWḤ from a basic notion of *‘breadth, evenness and dryness or compactness in s.th.’, which he saw exemplarily represented in lawḥ ‘board, tablet, plank’ (accord. to him the * ‘broad, even, dry and compact thing’). (The aspect of *‘breadth’ then gave, ‘visibility’, and the element of ‘dryness’ gave ‘thirst, desiccation, withering’, etc.). – A strength of this argument is the fact that only ‘board, tablet, plank’ seems to have a deeper Sem dimension; on the other hand, the theory appears to be rather far-fetched.
▪ The meaning ‘shoulder blade’ is prob. a semantic extension rather than the original value, as the Sem cognates do not include it.
▪ …

hist

▪ eC7 Q 7:145, 150, 154; 54:13; 85:22. – Jeffrey1938: »There are two distinct uses of the word in the Qurʔān. In 54:13, it is used for the ‘planks’ of Noah’s ark, and elsewhere for ‘tablets’ of revelation, in Sura 7 for the tablets of Moses, and in 85:22 for the heavenly archetype of the Qurʔān.«
▪ The (prob. extended) value ‘shoulder blade’ gave adj.s like ^†ʔalwaḥᵘ and ^†milwāḥ, both signifying s.o. ‘having broad bones, shoulder blades, tall’.
▪ …

cogn

▪ Akk lēʔu ‘(wooden) board, writing board, document, sheet of precious metal, ingot’, Ug *lḥ /lūḥu/, older /lōḥu/ ‘(Brief-)Tafel’ (only pl. lḥt attested, meaning sg. ‘letter, message’), Hbr lūᵃḥ, Aram lūḥā, Mnd luha, Soq lūḥ ‘board’, Ar lawḥ ‘board, table, tablet, plank, plate, parchment’ (> Gz lawḥ ‘id.’, luḥ ‘plank of wood, timber’, loḥa ‘to write’)
▪ …

disc

▪ Jeffrey1938: »In the related languages we find both these meanings [‘planks’ and ‘tablets’]. The Hbr lūᵃḥ means both the ‘planks’ of a ship (as in Ez. xxvii, 5), and the ‘stone tablets’ of the Ten Commandments (Ex. xxiv, 12). Similarly, Aram lūḥā can mean a ‘table’ for food, or, as constantly in the Targums, the ‘tablets’ of the Covenant, so Syr lūḥā is used of a ‘wooden board’, e.g. the títlos affixed to the Cross, and for the ‘tablets’ of the Covenant. Also the Eth [Gz] lawḥ, though not a common word, is used for the broken ‘boards’ on which Paul and his companions escaped from shipwreck in Acts xxvii, 44 (ed. Rom.), and also for ‘writing tablets’ of wood, metal, or stone. / In the early Arabic poetry we find the word used only in the sense of ‘plank’, cf. Ṭarafa iv, 12; Imruʔ al-Qays, x, 13, and Zuhayr, i, 23 (in Ahlwardt’s Divans),¹ and the Lexicons take this as the primitive meaning. The word may be a loan-word in both senses, but even if a case could be made out for its being a genuine Ar word in the sense of ‘plank’, there can be no doubt that as used for the ‘Tables of Revelation’ it is a borrowing from the older faiths. Hirschfeld, Beiträge, 36, would have it derived from the Hbr, but Horovitz, KU, 66; JPN, 220, 221, is more likely to be correct² in considering it as from the Aram, though whether from Jewish or Christian sources it is difficult to say. / If we can trust the genuineness of a verse of Sarāqaẗ b. ʕAwf in Aġānī, xv, 138, which refers to Muḥammad’s revelations as ʔalwāḥ we may judge that the word was used in this technical sense among Muḥammad’s contemporaries.« -- Cf., however, above, section CONC.
▪ …

1. Cf. also ash-Shammakh, xvii, 13, in Geycr, Zwei Gedichte, i, 136. 2. Vide also Fraenkel, Vocab, 21; Cheikho, Naṣrāniyya, 221.

west

–

deriv

►lawḥ ʔarduwāz, n., slab of slate, slate;
►lawḥ muǧaʕqad, n., corrugated iron;
►lawḥ al-ǧalīd, n., block of ice;
►lawḥ ḥadīd, n., sheet iron;
►lawḥ zuǧāǧ, n., sheet of glass, pane;
►al-lawḥ al-maḥfūẓ, n., (Q 85:22) the Preserved/Guarded Tablet whereon are said to be inscribed all the divine decrees; the depository of the decrees, or willed events, ordained by God;
►lawḥ mutaḥarrik, n., spring board (in sports);
►lawḥ maʕdinī, n., metal plate, metal sheet;
►lawḥ al-nāfiḏaẗ, n., windowpane

►lawwaḥa, vb. II, 1-3 ↗¹lāḥa; 4 ↗²lāḥa; 5 to plank, lay with planks (the floor): D-stem, denom. from lawḥ and/or ↗lawḥaẗ
►^BP#1276lawḥaẗ, pl. -āt, lawāʔiḥᵘ, n.f., 1a board; b blackboard; c slate; d tablet; e slab; 2a plate, sheet; b pane; c panel; 3 plaque; 4 plane, surface; 5 screen; 6a placard, poster; b picture, painting: f. of lawḥᵘ | ↗s.v.

For other values attached to the root, cf. ↗¹lāḥa, ↗²lāḥa, ↗lawḥaẗ, and ↗lāʔiḥaẗ as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√LWḤ.

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