What is the difference between these two words, specifically etymologically and philologically?
I’m not sure I understand the question. Yovel is the jubilee year, the 50th year of the 50 year cycle. Shofar is the ram’s horn that is blown, amongst other times, at in the Yovel year.
I don’t have my etymological dictionary of the Hebrew language here, but I don’t think there’s a connection.
curwin:
I think Mjollnir is referring to the use of the word “Yobhel” in Exodus 19:13 - “He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live.’ Only when the ram’s horn sounds a long blast may they go up to the mountain.”
I think that “Yobhel” refers to any sort of trumpet, whereas “Shofar” specifically refers to one made from an animal’s horn.
I’ll try to get confirmation of this later.
Am I the only one who saw the thread title and thought, “Wow! Another classic pairing of monsters, like Godzilla vs. Mothra! Wait, these names don’t seem very Japanese…”
Ok, I’m home, and I checked my etymological dictionary.
Yovel: ram; ram’s horn [probably derived from YBL (=to bear, carry) and orig. meaning ‘leader of the flock, bellwether’]
He goes on to say that the Yovel year (jubilee) was proclaimed by the blowing of the ram’s horn.
Shofar also means a ram’s horn.
According to the JPS commentary on Exodus, “Hebrew yovel seems originally to have meant a sheep or a ram, as in Joshua 6:4,5. It is also so used in the Punic Marseilles Tariff (line 7) of the fourth century BCE. However it came to be restricted to the horn.”
Among rabbinic commentators, some feel that the yovel in that verse is refering to the ram’s horn, others to the ram itself.
Yep, I just checked it up myself. “Yobhel” is the more specific one, referring to the horn of a ram. “Shofar,” while commonly from a ram, could be from any animal that has horns with similar properties (such as goats or antelopes. Cow horns are different).
Chaim Mattis Keller