AI representation of the Gezer Calendar tablet in the palm of a hand, the size of which is 11.1 × 7.2 cm, in Paleo-Hebrew made c. 10th century BCE. Notably, and surely not inconsequential, is the fact that there are 8 lines to this little cyclical “calendar” poem and the last one denotes a “cut off” (e.g. eighth day circum-cutting). The carver adds the name “Abijah” written vertically at the bottom. Image generated by Google’s Image AI.
ירחו אסף
ירחו זרע
ירחו לקש
ירח עצד פשת
ירח קצר שערם
ירח קצר וכל
ירחו זמר
ירח קץ
1. A dual-moon of himself he gathered
2. A dual-moon of himself he sowed
3. A dual-moon of himself he gleaned the late crop
4. A dual-moon he scutched/cut flax
5. A dual-moon he mowed their hair,
6. A dual-moon he mowed and he contained
7. A dual-moon of himself he made music
8. A dual-moon he cut off
Father of Being (“Abi-jah”)
Notes
עצד is a rare word related to cutting flax, either with a scutching sword, or perhaps a flax cutting knife (which is curved like a sickle).
The Phoenician/early Canaanite spelling corresponds to the consonantal root שׂערם. In the Northwest Semitic abjad, this would be read exactly like the Hebrew שיערם: שׂ (shin) – ע (‘ayin) – ר (resh) – מ (mem), “their hair.” It is unrelated to barley (שָׂעוֹרָה), which would be spelled differently ( in a corresponding Phoenician consonantal form). So preserves the same semantic field: hair, not grain.
וכל from the root כול and he contained. The most central semantic value of כול (H3557) is “to contain, to hold in,” with measuring being a derivative or secondary sense, not the basic one. In the lexicographical tradition, the primary idea is capaciousness or holding something within limits.
The Phoenician sequence corresponds consonantally to זמר (z-m-r). In Northwest Semitic, as in Biblical Hebrew, the root זמר primarily carries the sense of “to make music, sing, or play an instrument”. The root H2168 זָמַר is also a verb meaning “to trim or prune,” but specifically in the agricultural sense of pruning vines in a vineyard. Not sure this fits with “pruning sown crops.”