Birth Bricks, Potter’s Wheels, and Exodus 1,16 307 Blackman’s ethnography of the Fellahin of Upper Egypt depict this equipment, a birthing stool and a woman leaning on a sieve while sitting on the stool (3). Roth and Roehrig also cite Winckler’s ethnographic accounts of similar practices in modern Egyptian villages (4). In Winckler’s account, the birthing woman rests her feet up-ended basins, ceramic cooking pots, or on mudbricks. It is this type of equipment, the birthing stool, which is referred to in these translations of Exodus 1,16. “Birthing stool” is not the only translation for ’obnayim that one encounters in English renderings of Exodus. The New Jerusalem Bible makes a relatively common translation error in Exod 1,16. ’obnayim there is translated as “the two stones”. Here then, ’obnayim is taken as a dual form of the word ’eben, the singular form that is usually rendered into English as “stone”. In fact, ’obnayim appears to be dual only in the ending, the vocalization of ’obnayim is not the most likely vocalization for a dual derived from ’eben. The expected vocalization would be abnayim, which is not attested, but is reconstructed on analogy with the attested dual from of regel, which is raglayim. The expected singular of ’obnayim is *’oben, but this word is not attested. While it is possible that the word was incorrectly vocalized by the Masoretes, it is best to assume that ’eben is not actually the same word and a translation involving stones is not required. As it stands, ’eben derives from the form *’abn and is cognate with the well attested Akkadian abnu. The etymology of ’obnayim should be seen in the singular form *’oben and in proto-semitic would have been ’ubnu. Unfortunately there is no obvious cognate for this word. However, an analogous situation is apparent with the word ’ozen (meaning ear) which in the dual is ’oznayim, and should be vocalized ’uznu in proto-semitic. Other translations that have been suggested reflect a better understanding of the history of the Hebrew language, but are still problematic. Propp, in his 1999 commentary on Exodus 1–18, discusses the problem of this word, and his discussion is worth repeating. Propp discusses three plausible interpretations but decides that a fourth translation makes more sense. Propp writes: “(a) the testicles proving the child’s gender…(b) pedestals upon which women rested their legs during birth…(c) the bricks on which Egyptian (3) W. BLACKMAN, The Fellahin of Upper Egypt (London 1968), figures 28 and 29. (4) A. ROTH – C. ROEHRIG, “Magical Bricks and the Bricks of Birth”, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 88 (2002) 130-131.