🔼The name Chephar-ammoni: Summary
- Meaning
- Village Of The People, Village Of The Ammonites
- Etymology
- From (1) the noun כפר (kapar), village, and (2) the noun עם ('am), people or kinsman.
🔼The name Chephar-ammoni in the Bible
The name Chephar-ammoni occurs once in the Bible. It's the name of a village that came to be situated in the territory allotted to the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:24).
🔼Etymology of the name Chephar-ammoni
The name Chephar-ammoni obviously exists of two (or rather three) elements. The first element is the word כפר (kapar), meaning village:
כפר
The verb כפר (kapar) describes the formation of any sort of protective perimeter around any sort of vulnerable interior.
Noun כפר (koper) describes the price of a human life, i.e. the purchasing price and maintenance costs of keeping a person out of slavery. This is not simply a single sum of money but rather an economic protective layer of all sorts of hedges and investments. The noun כפרים (kippurim) is in fact a plural of the previous and denotes a massive free-buying and free-keeping of many people at once. Noun כפרת (kapporet) is the technical term for the cover of the Ark of the Covenant; the Mercy Seat.
Nouns כפר (kapar) and כפר (koper) mean village, but emphasize not the mere huddling together of folks, but rather any rudimentary social stratification that mimics the natural formation of eukaryotic cells, with cell walls, organelles and a nucleus that hosts the wisdom tradition.
The final part of our name comes from the name Ammon and is an ethnonym meaning Ammonites. The name Ammon in turn comes from the noun עם ('am), meaning people or nation:
עמם
The verb עמם ('mm) probably expressed to be inclusive or comprehensive. Its rare uses in the Bible relate to making secrets or making info available to an in-crowd. Preposition עם ('im) means 'with', מעם (me'im) means 'from', and עמה ('umma) means 'beside'. Noun עם ('am) means a people, ranging from all of mankind to the in-crowd of a small village. Noun עם ('am) refers to one's (paternal) kinsman.
Preceding the word עמוני (Ammonites) is the letter ה (he), which is either the definite article or a particle that governs motion toward: the or to/of.
🔼Chephar-ammoni meaning
The whole name Chephar-ammoni would mean something like Village Of The People, but most commentators interpret this name simply as Village Of The Ammonites.