What I Learned from a Laotian Elephant

Elephant Victory, Elephant, river, hebrew, word, ancient, greek, names, language, yehovah, hovah, disaster, root, pilegesh, concubine, indo, yhvh, Mishnah, Dead Sea ScrollsA few weeks ago I was bathing an elephant in northern Laos, when she suddenly decided to toss me headlong into the murky waters of the Mekong River. My encounter with Ms. Snuffleupagus got me thinking about the Hebrew word for elephant, which is PIL פיל. This word does not appear in the Tanakh, simply because the Hebrew Bible had no occasion to speak about elephants. However, the word did exist in ancient Hebrew and later appears in the Mishnah and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Hebrew word PIL is probably the source (via Phoenician) behind the Greek word ELEPHAS, from which the English word "elephant" is itself derived (via French). Continue reading