MAHAN

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Pearl of Great Price PN 1. MASTER MAHAN re Cain and Lamech (Moses 5:31,39).

Possibly from Hebrew māḥâ “to smite, wipe out, annihilate,”[1] which is used in the PN Měḥûyāʼēl “Smitten by God” (Genesis 4:18),[2] and possibly in the GN Mahujah (PGP Moses 7:2), and PN Mahijah (Moses 6:40), which are virtually the same as Aramaic PN Mḥwy in the Qumran Enoch fragments (4Q203 frag 2:1, frag 7 II:5; 4Q530 II 21; 6Q8 frag 1:2).[3]

Or from hypothetical Sumerian *Maḫ-gal, “supreme-master,” with Sumerian gal “master,” as in šitim gal “master mason”[4]; gal = Akkadian rabu “great.” For both Mahah, son of Jared (Ether 6:14), and Master Mahan (Moses 5:31,39), perhaps the etymological source is Sumero-Akkadian MAḪ, maḫ “highest, supreme,” as in LU.MAḪ, lumaḫḫum, a high-ranking priest, “ecstatic priest.”[5]

See Mahah

Notes

  1. ↑ HALOT, II:567-568.
  2. ↑ HALOT, II:568.
  3. ↑ H. Nibley, Enoch the Prophet (Provo: FARMS/SLC: Deseret, 1986) = Collected Works II:278-279.
  4. ↑ Michalowski Letters 80.
  5. ↑ Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, rev. ed., 221-222; Michalowski, Letters from Early Mesopotamia, 32-33, 55, 58-59 (texts 83 - 86), 138.
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