HIMNI

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Lehite PN 1. Son of King MOSIAH II (Mosiah 27:34; Alma 22:35; 23:1; 25:17; 27:19; 31:6)

Etymology

This Nephite name, HIMNI, no doubt is related to the PN ḥmn on a seal found at Megiddo.[1] The form of the name is identical to the biblical HEBREW names Zimri, Omri, and Tibni from approximately the same time period as the seal. The etymology is uncertain.[2]

Nibley suggested an EGYPTIAN theophoric name Ḥmn[3], which Egyptologists interpret as a falcon-god, the falcon being symbolic of the king. This would be a reference to an obscure local-god Ḥemen,[4] whom Faulkner lists as the god “Hemen, a falcon-god worshipped near Esna in Upper EGYPT.”[5]

See OMNI, ZERAHEMNAH

Variants

Deseret Alphabet: 𐐐𐐆𐐣𐐤𐐌 (hɪmnaɪ)

Notes


  1. See Nahman Avigad, Corus of West Semitic Stamp Seals, revised and completed by Benjamin Sass (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, et al., 1997), 99, seal 160. Of more than passing interest is the fact that the seal has EGYPTIAN glyptic elements. The connection between the name on this seal and the Book of Mormon name HIMNI was first pointed out in John A. Tvedtnes, John Gee, and Matthew Roper. “Book of Mormon Names Attested in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions,” JBMS 9/1 (2000):47.
  2. Though the etymology is uncertain, see the suggestions in Avigad, 498.
  3. Nibley, "Lehi in the Desert", Lehi in the Desert; The World of the Jaredites; There Were Jaredites. John W. Welch, Darrell L. Matthews, and Stephen R. Callister, eds. Collected Works of Hugh Nibley. 5. (Salt Lake City/Provo: Deseret Book/FARMS, 1988.), 27.
  4. Pyramid Texts 235, 483, and Book of the Dead 19: intro.
  5. R. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, 2nd ed. (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1985), 190; Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969/ Sandpiper Books, 1998).