Abstract
This paper contains some thoughts about words. It is a modest undertaking and is meant to do no more than elaborate upon and set forth the reasoning underlying a proposal that I advanced some years ago regarding the meaning of Akkadian alaktu and its relation to the Jewish terms Hebrew hălāḵā and Aramaic hilḵĕṯā. In preparing this paper, I have had before me two distinct goals and have, accordingly, divided the paper into two separate sections. First, I try to establish an additional (and thus far unnoticed) set of meanings for alaktu (= Sumerian a.rá) and to track this meaning especially when alaktu appears in combination with the verb lamādu. Then, turning to halakhah, I set out some of the implications of our inner Assyriological examination for the origin of the Hebrew and Aramaic terms hălāḵā and hilḵĕṯā. In doing so, I register my dissent from a previous proposal of a particular Akkadian term (ilku) as the source of the word halakhah, and present a set of alternative hypotheses as to the derivation of the Jewish terms. The opinions expressed about even alaktu are tentative and in need of further refinement, and our thoughts on the relation of alaktu and halakhah remain perforce in the realm of conjecture.