Note 136 — Chapter III

נִכְסָף is usually thought to have as its root meaning to be pale or colourless, i.e. either white or black (Journal of Phil., 14, 125), whence כֶּסֶף, silver or the pale metal: hence in the Qal to long for, Job xiv. 15, Ps. xvii. 12; so Ni, Gen. xxxi. 30, Ps. lxxxiv. 3; and here to be ashamed. But the derivation of the name for silver is quite imaginary, and the colour of shame is red rather than white: cf. the mod. Arab. saying, “They are a people that cannot blush; they have no blood in their faces,” i.e. shameless. Indeed Schwally says (in loco), “Die Bedeutung fahl, blass ist unerweislich.” Hence (in spite of the meanings of the Aram. כסף both to lose colour and to be ashamed) a derivation for the Hebrew is more probably to be found in the root kasaf, to cut off. The Arab. کﺴف, which in the classic tongue means to cut a thread or eclipse the sun, is in colloquial Arabic to give a rebuff, refuse a favour, disappoint, shame. In the forms inkasaf and itkasaf it means to receive a rebuff, be disappointed, then shy or timid, and kasûf means shame, shyness (as well as eclipse of the sun). See Spiro’s Arabic-English Vocabulary. In Ps. lxxxiv. נכסף is evidently used of unsatisfied longing (but see Cheyne), which is also the proper meaning of the parallel כלה (cf. other passages where כלה is used of still unfulfilled or rebuffed hopes: Job xix. 27, Ps. lxix. 4, cxix. 81, cxliii. 7). So in Ps. xvii. 4 כסף is used of a lion who is longing for, i.e. still disappointed in, his prey, and so in Job xiv. 15.