🔼The name Beth-hoglah: Summary
- Meaning
- House Of The Partridge
- Etymology
- From (1) the noun בית (beth), house, and (2) the noun חגלה (hogla), partridge.
🔼The name Beth-hoglah in the Bible
The name Beth-hoglah occurs three times in the Bible, but each time as a marker for the border of the territory of the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 15:6, 18:19 and 18:21). The latter verse reveals that Beth-hoglah is a city in which the Benjaminites lived.
Our name is spelled without a maqqep in Joshua 15:6.
🔼Etymology of the name Beth-hoglah
The name Beth-hoglah consists of two elements. The first part is identical to the common Hebrew word בית (bayit) meaning house:
בית
The noun בית (bayit) means house. It sometimes merely denotes a domestic building, but mostly it denotes the realm of authority of the house-father, or אב (ab). This ab is commonly the living alpha male of a household, but may very well be a founding ancestor (as in the familiar term the "house of Israel"). The אב (ab) may also be a deity, in which case the בית (bayit) is that which we know as a temple.
In the larger economy, a house interacts with other houses. These interactions are governed by the אב (ab), or "father" and executed by the בנים (benim), or "sons": those people living in the house, irrespective of any biological relation with the אב (ab). The "sons" combined add up to אם ('em), which means both "mother" and "tribe".
The second part of our name is the same as the name Hoglah, and that name appears to come from an unused root חגל that also occurs in Arabic where it means to hop or hobble. From this Arabic verb comes a noun that means partridge, which makes scholars believe that the Hebrew language had a similar word that simply wasn't used in the Bible, except as the name Hoglah.
🔼Beth-hoglah meaning
For a meaning of the name Beth-hoglah, both NOBSE Study Bible Name List and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names read House Of The Partridge. BDB Theological Dictionary suggests a rather brusque Place Of Partridge.