ABISH
| Lehite PN | 1. | Queen's maid in the land of ISHMAEL (hence perhaps an Ishmaelitess), ca. 90 BC (Alma 19:16) |
This Lamanite female name can best be understood as "father is a man," from the two Hebrew elements, ʾab meaning "father," and iš meaning "man." The biblical names Abiah "Father is Yahweh" and Abijah "(My) Father is Yahweh" both contain the vocale ʾab. The second element appears in the biblical names Esh-baal ʾšbʿl "Man of the Lord/Baal" in 1 Chronicles 8:33, Ishbosheth ʾšbšt "Man of Shame" (the same person as Esh-baal, but with disphemism*), and in a Hebrew inscription from Arad ʾšyhw eshyahu "Man of Yahweh." 1
With the two vocables reversed, ʾšb, the name occurs on a 7th century stamp seal found, most likely, in Israel, though the compilers vocalized the name ʾašʾab, "Gift of Father." 2 For other similar names in Semitic languages see Eblaite iš-a-bu, "a man is the father," and iš-i-lum, "a man is El." 3 See also Akkadian abu-ša-la-i-du, "her father she did not know." (JH)
Many forms of names in Hebrew are not gender specific. 4 For example, see the female biblical PNs Abigail and Abishag. Therefore, the presence of the masculine rational noun, "father," poses no problems for this female name.
Other suggestions include deriving the second element from ʾš, “there is/are.” The name would then mean “father exists” (RFS). ABISH could also be related to the pre-exilic Hebrew name ʾbšʾ (Abisha) on a seal in the Hecht Museum in Haifa, as well as to the far more ancient Semitic name ʾbšʾ (Abisha) from the 12th Dynasty tomb of Khnum-hotep II at Beni Hasan, Egypt. 5
Lest objection be made that a woman would not bear a name containing the masculine element “father,” see the biblical PNs for women Abigail and Abishag.
Notes
Cf. Ebla iš-a-bu, “a man is the father,” and iš-i-lum, “a man is El” (G. Pettinato, “The Royal Archives of Tell Mardikh-Ebla,” BA 39 [1976], p. 50) (RFS). JAT notes the Ebla PNs abašu and abùsi' (Pettinato, “Archives”).
Much less likely is a hypocoristicon from a name like Abishag, Abishai, Abishua, and Abishur, all known from the Bible. Cf. Akkadian abuša-laidu, “her father she did not know” (JH). PYH and JAT object to the suggestion of etymologies which necessitate the breaking up of roots to yield hypocoristic meanings for Book of Mormon names. Hypocoristic elements usually are made by substituting a short form, such as ℵ, for the full name of a god. Hypocoristic elements are not made by dropping some phonemes from a morpheme, as the suggestion above would require.
Much less likely are linguistically mixed names: If from Hebrew ʾb, and Egyptian 3bi, “desire, want,” then Abish would be ʾāb-ʾîš “man’s desire” (RFS); possibly Hebrew-Akkadian ʿabiš, “cloudy, cloud-like,” from ʿab, “cloud” + iš, dative-adverbial case ending in Akkadian (RFS). Other suggestions include possibly Hebrew bīš with degenerate definite article, (h)ab-bīš, “the bad one, the unholy one” (RFS); and perhaps from the Hebrew root ʿbš, “shrivel,” though an unlikely name unless it describes the woman’s physical appearance (JAT).
