Triliteral Root of the Day

Arm; stretch out, extend; power. The Triliteral Root of the Day from OCABS, in Hebrew and Arabic, with passages from the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qurʾan.

Show Notes

ז-ר-ע (zayin–resh–ʿayin) / ذ–ر–ع (dhāl–rāʾ–ʿayn)

Arm; stretch out, extend; power

In the Hebrew Bible: zeroaʿ, arm · ʾezroaʿ, arm

In the Qurʾan: dharʿ, uneasy · dhirāʿ, his two forelegs

Sound-law correspondence and an explicit cognate link. al-ḥurūf al-lithawiyya, at the fāʾ: dhāl written zayin.

Passages

  • Job 22:9: You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
  • 2 Samuel 22:35: He teaches my hands to war, so that my arms bend a bow of brass.
  • Deuteronomy 9:29: Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”
  • Luke 1:51: He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
  • Sūrat al-Ḥāqqa سورة الحاقة “The Reality” 69:32: And then insert him in a chain whereof the length is seventy cubits.
  • Sūrat Hūd سورة هود “Hud” 11:77: And when Our messengers came unto Lot, he was distressed and knew not how to protect them. He said: This is a distressful day.
  • Sūrat al-Kahf سورة الكهف “The Cave” 18:18: And thou wouldst have deemed them waking though they were asleep, and We caused them to turn over to the right and the left, and their dog stretching out his paws on the threshold. If thou hadst observed them closely thou hadst assuredly turned away from them in flight, and hadst been filled with awe of them.

The whole card on ocabs.org · The Consolation of Consonants

Opening music: Touchia Ḥijāz, Thami Ben Abdelkrim, violin, with percussion (Morocco, 1920s), public domain. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF, Archives de la Parole.

What is Triliteral Root of the Day?

Every day, one Semitic triliteral root heard in three scriptures: the root in Hebrew and Arabic, how it functions, and a passage from the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qurʾan, read in the original languages with the English. Two or three minutes a day, from OCABS on the Ephesus School Network.