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(BA) Genesis 2, sbb
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31 July 2022 Navigate 'up' to the Genesis index: index-genesis. Navigate 'up' to the Hebrew index: index-hebrew.

The verb sbb, which generally refers to turning or circling, is used in Genesis 2:12,13 to describe the motion of two rivers, one through "all the land of the Havilah," and "all the land of Kush."

One idea is that maybe it refers to the way rivers meander back and forth, perhaps in those semi-circles that you can see with very slow-moving rivers. Another idea is that the rivers go literally in a circle around each of the two lands mentioned.

On the one hand, rivers in regular geography don't go in circles around entire lands, at least not typically. On the other hand, these are no ordinary rivers.

Sources
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