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      yehoshua steinberg
      Feb 22, 2021

      Is there any connection between קהל ("congregation"/"assembly") and להק?

      in Roots – שורשים
      1 answer0 replies
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      yehoshua steinberg
      Feb 22, 2021

      ANSWER: The root קהל is a permutation of the root להק. The word להקה means a “gathering” or a “group”, as in: “And Saul sent messengers to take David, and he saw the להקת company of prophets…” (I Sam. 19:20). The Metzudas Tzion there explains that the word להקת is a metathesis of קהלת (gathering), meaning the consonants in the word are scrambled and switch their position, but the resulting word means the same as the original. He compares this to the case of keves (כבש) and kesev (כשב) — both synonyms for “sheep” — that are spelled differently by reversing the order of the ש and ב. R’ Saadia Gaon’s commentary to Ps. 22:16 (paraphrased below) also writes that להקת (I Sam. 19:20) is equivalent to קהלת (Deut. 33:4) and also lists a bunch of other examples of metathesis in Biblical Hebrew: מלתעות (Ps. 58:7) is equivalent to מתלעות (Job 29:16); אלגומים (II Chron. 9:10) corresponds to אלמוגים (I Kings 13:12), and there are many other examples. For your benefit, here are the sources I quoted in their original Hebrew:

      [‘קהל’ = ‘להק’ בחילוף מיקום אותיות. לשון ‘להקה’ מציינת קיבוץ וקבוצה, כדוגמת]: ש”א יט:כ – וירא את להקת הנביאים; מצ”צ (שם): להקת – קבוצת, והוא הפוך ממלת קהלת, וכמו כבש כשב; [גם רבינו סעדיה גאון מעיר על קירבה זו]: פירוש רס”ג (תה’ כב:טז – ת”ד): יבש כחרש כחי – נגב חכי כחרס נראה לפי הענין ש’כחי’ הוא היפוך של ‘חכי’. ומצינו מעין כך עוד היפוכים, כגון: ‘להקת’ (ש”א יט:כ)/’קהלת’ (דב’ לג:ד); מלתעות כפירים (תה’ נח:ז)/מתלעות (איוב כט:טז); אלגומים (דה”ב ט:י)/אלמוגים (מ”א יג:יב), ודומיהם.

      Rabbi Yehoshua (Jeremy) Steinberg

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