HAGOTH

Lehite PN

1.

Shipbuilder near the lands Bountiful and Desolation who launched the ships at the west side of the narrow neck of land ca. 55 BC (Alma 63:5)

There are several biblical PNs which resemble Hagoth, all derived from ḫgg, “to celebrate, sacrifice,” and ḫg, “festival, holiday” (cp. Arabic ḫajj, “pilgrimage [to Mecca]”). Related biblical PNs include Haggai (the prophet whose name means “born on the feast-day” [Noth 222]), Haggi (a son of Gad and father of the Haggites), Haggiah (a Levite), and Haggith (one of David’s wives). It would be easy to see in Hagoth a plural or preferably an abstract of ḫg, namely “festival,” yielding a hypocoristic name such as “[God is the] festival,” or “[the one of the] festival.”

The particular form of this name may be derived from the root ḫg and the common Semitic abstract marker -ūt. This affix normally is pronounced ut in Hebrew, but in a few instances seems to have shifted in sound to an ot, e.g., twmkj (Gesenius 86l and 97t,u). The t in Hebrew currently (not biblically?) has two pronunciations, t and th, the latter representing the aspirated t. The context of the single Hebrew consonant represented by t and th, t, determines which pronunciation is required.

There is in Deuteronomy or Judges a masculine name that ends in ot. Find it and add it to this list. FOUND: Judges 4:4, Lapidoth, husband of Deborah. The ending -oth looks like the Hebrew f.p., but it also appears on masculine PNs, e.g., Naboth in 1 Kings 21 passim and Meraioth in Ezra 7:3.

Beginning Hebrew students are always puzzled by the fact that some obviously masculine nouns take the so-called “feminine” ending, ōt, in the plural. For example, the plural of “father” in Hebrew does not take the expected masculine form *ʾabbīm, but the unexpected ʾabbōt. Suffice it to say that because of such examples there is still much discussion on the origin of the Semitic masculine and feminine plurals, especially whether or not they originally had anything to do with gender.

A second, less likely possible etymology would derive Hagoth from ḥgh, * “take asylum or refuge,” as in the noun form ḥgīm, “clefts of the rocks, places of refuge” (Isaiah 2:21; The Song of Solomon 2:14; Obadiah 1:3; Jeremiah 49:16). This, however, is less likely because the plural form takes the ending -īm, not the -oth of the Book of Mormon name. Therefore, it is doubtful that Hagoth comes from this root, although it provides a nice hypocoristic name meaning “[God is] refuge.”

See also Egyptian ḥgwt. *(who?)