THE LEXICAL CONTEXT OF THETERMINOLOGY FOR "POOR" IN THE BOOK OF PROVERBS

Starting with the contrasting evaluation of poverty in the Book of Proverbs, the author first gives a short review of scholarship iVon Rad, Gese, Kuschke) pointing to weaknesses in previous approaches. A new departure is being sought with the help of linguistics (theory of lexical fields). The paper then sets out to analyse the terminology of "poor" in their paradigmatic and syntagmati(!. relations. The author contends that the four major terms for poor - rās, dal, 'ebyōn and  ƈ ānī - do not all belong to the same lexical field. He holds that two different fields can be distinguished, despite a certain degree of overlap, viz the field of poverty and wealth as social states, and the field of justice.