integrated into a coherent and linguistically sound view of Hebrew. We may illustrate this last point by noting the abundance of homonyms that would be created if we were to accept these proposals. James Barr, for example, has collected no fewer than six unrelated proposed meanings for the verb yada’ (‘to know’).21 Although it would be a serious mistake to dismiss the method altogether, every proposal must be carefully scrutinized and evaluated on the basis of established semantic principles, such