Re: Jezebel and Isabel
in reply to a message by Magda
It does appear that they come from the same name. The letter J did not exist in the ancient world. The name is most likely the Hebrew אִיזֶבֶל ('Izevel), which probably means "where is the prince?", a ritual question spoken in ceremonies honouring Baal. Alternatively, it may mean "not exalted"
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Jezabel in Yiddish hebrew translation is Izevel, which is pronounced "Izebel". So very likely Isabel is a dirivation. The name does not mean wicked, though the woman was. It means "exalted bel" ( who in biblical text was her god). Baal or bel were often used in names to connect to characteristics of deities as was in Hebrew in names like Micha-el or Dani-el. The problem is who bel was in jezebel, likely Dagon or chemosh or lucifer, demonic enemies of YWH, The Most High God.
Jezebel in the Hebrew is אִיזֶבֶל ('Izevel) which would read like "not exalted" or "not married" in any language of Canaan. It's probably a disparaging form of the original Phoenician name, which in full was probably "The Lord ("baal") is my dwelling/husband", something like B'l'zbl, which seems to be a known female name in Phoenician. The English form Jezebel comes via the Septaguint, which rendered the name in Greek as Iezebel, or Jezebel once J instead of I came to stand for the phoneme /j/ in medieval Latin (/j/ to /dj/ or similar occurred later in some languages. Oh, and /b/ and /v/ are common allophones, with one letter often standing for both phonemes as the value changes due the surrounding phonemes).
This message was edited 2/7/2020, 4:14 AM