the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Flag
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or Exodus 2:3. Cuwph Hebrew, the Egyptian tufi or sufi . An undesigned coincidence that so many Egyptian words should occur in Exodus, just what we should expect if it be, as it professes, Moses' record; but no Hebrew reared in Palestine long after the Exodus would have had the knowledge of the Egyptian tongue which the many plainly Hebraized Egyptian words in Exodus indicate that its author possessed; nor would the author have used these words with out explanation of their meaning, had he not known that his readers were equally familiar with them. This flag is a species of papyrus, distinct from and less than that commonly used in Egypt to construct light boats, namely, the "Bulrush papyrus (from whence comes our paper), of which Moses' ark was made. (See BULRUSH.)
The cuwph or "secondary papyrus" is again used in the case of Egypt, Isaiah 19:6. Also "the Red Sea," the sea of suph (Exodus 10:19). Gesenius explains "seaweed" or "rush"; a seaweed like wool is thrown in quantities on its shores. Jonah 2:5-6 uses it of "the seaweeds wrapped about his head," for He was not swallowed by the fish at once, but sank to the bottom, where the seaweed was his grave-napkin; thence the fish swallowed him. Another Hebrew word, 'achu , is translated "flag", Job 8:11; in Genesis 41:2 "a meadow." Jerome on Isaiah 19:7 says the Egyptians told him it meant "everything green growing in marshes"; the sedge, rank reed grass by the river's side. An Egyptian word, akh-akh , "green," occurs in a very old papyrus.
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Flag'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/f/flag.html. 1949.
