meaning in Conj. viii. is evidently: yftarra kidban, to cut out lies, to meditate and to express that which is calumnious (a similar metaphor to khar'a, findere, viii. fingere, to cut out something in the imagination; French, inventer, imaginer). With this fary, however, we do not immediately reach פּוּריא, אפּריון; for fary, as well as fara (farw), are used only of cutting to pieces, cutting out, sewing together of leather and other materials (cf. Arab. farwat, fur; farrā, furrier), but not of cutting and preparing wood.
But why should not the Semitic language have used פּרה, פּרא, also, in the sense of the verb בּרא, which signifies[1] to cut and hew, in the sense of forming (cf. Pih. כּרא, sculpere, Eze 21:24), as in the Arab. bara and bary, according to Lane, mean, “be formed or fashioned by cutting (a writing-reed, stick, bow), shaped out, or pared,” - in other words: Why should פרה, used in the Arab. of the cutting of leather, not be used, in the Heb. and Aram., of the preparing of wood, and thus of the fashioning of a bed or carriage? As חשּׁבון signifies a machine, and that the work of an engineer, so פּריון signifies timber-work, carpenter-work, and, lengthened especially by Aleph prosthet., a product of the carpenter's art, a bed of state. The Aleph prosth. would indeed favour the supposition that appiryon is a foreign word; for the Semitic language frequently forms words after this manner, - e.g., אמגּוּשׁא, a magician; אסמּרא, a stater.[2]
But apart from such words as אגרטל, oddly sounding in accord with κάρταλλος as appiryon with φορεῖον, אבטּיח and אבעבּעה are examples of genuine Heb. words with such a prosthesis, i.e., an Aleph, as in אכזב and the like. אפּדן, palace, Dan 11:45, is, for its closer amalgamation by means of Dag., at least an analogous example; for thus it stands related to the Syr. opadna, as, e.g., (Syr.), oparsons, net, Ewald, §163c, to the Jewish-Aram. אפרסנא, or אפּרסנא; cf. also אפּתם, “finally,” in relation to the Pehlv. אפדוּם (Spiegel's Literatur der Parsen, p. 356).[3]
We think we have thus proved that אפּריון is a Heb. word, which, coming from the verb פּרה, to cut right, to make, frame, signifies[4]
- ↑ Vid., Friedr. Delitzsch's Indogerm.-sem. Stud. p. 50. We are now taught by the Assyr. that as בן goes back to בנה, so בר (Assyr. nibru) to ברה = ברא, to bring forth.
- ↑ Vid., Merx's Gramm. Syr. p. 115.
- ↑ אּפוּריא, quoted by Gesen. in his Thes., Sanhedrin 109b, is not applicable here, it is contracted from אד־פוריא (on the bed).
- ↑ This derivation explains how it comes that appiryon can mean, in the Karaite Heb., a bird-cage or aviary, vid., Gottlober's ס בקרת, p. 208. We have left out of view the phrase אפריון נמטיי ליה, which, in common use, means: we present to him homage (of approbation or thanks). It occurs first, as uttered by the Sassanidean king, Shabur I, Mezia 119a, extr.; and already Rapoport, in his Erech Millîn, 1852, p. 183, has recognised this word appiryon as Pers. It is the Old Pers. âfrîna or âfrivana (from frî, to love), which signifies blessing or benediction (vid., Justi's Handb. d. Zendsprache, p. 51). Rashi is right in glossing it by חן שׁלנו (the testimony of our favour).
