Lexical Meaning in Biblical Hebrew and Cognitive Semantics 93 refuge” appears often to be present. Jer 16,19 testifies explicitly in this regard hr:[; µ/yB] ysWnm]W yZI[¨ hw:hy“. Like j'Ko it is an ability that sometimes needs to be mustered or invoked. In Ps 93,1 it is said that God “clothed” himself with z[o, while in Isa 51,9 he is asked to clothe Himself with z[o. When z[o is used to describe an attribute of humans or animals, it refers to specially endowed humans (trained warriors, kings, and Lady Wisdom) or big animals. In contrast z[', which is evenly distributed through the entire Hebrew Bible, is never an attribute of God, but an attribute of people (a nation, king, an enemy), big animals and natural forces. A frame of aggression, fierceness or destructiveness is nearly always present. It is significant that the verbal root zz[ tends to share the distribution and meaning potential of z[o and not z['. A feature of the pair rbg/hrwbg, which it shares with j'Ko and qzj, is that the pair is relatively evenly distributed in the Hebrew Bible. Unlike j'Ko, hr:WbG“ is never modified and prototypically describes the ability to perform actions that require a huge measure of force or an extreme effort — more or less in the same way as the English expression “very powerful”. In other words, unlike j'Ko, it is always marked for a huge measure. A significant feature of hr:WbG“ as a near-synonym of j'Ko (78) or z[o (79) is that in all the cases that they are used in the same context (mainly in semantic parallelisms) hr:WbG“ is mentioned second. I regard this feature of hr:WbG“ as a confirmation of my hypothesis that it is the more specialized or marked item of j'Ko or z[o (80). The pair ≈ma/≈yma is also evenly distributed throughout the Hebrew Bible. It often co-occurs with qzj. It is significant that it is always the second member of the pair, which may suggest that ≈ma/≈yma are the more specialized terms. This possibility is underlined by the fact that ≈ma/≈yma has a more focused distribution than qzj in the sense that it occurs primarily in contextual frames of conflict. lyIj' is a frequently occurring item (245×), but it has a more specialized connotation than j'Ko and qzj. If one leaves out of consideration the substantial number of cases that it refers to (1) a specialized skill (81), (2) (in a few cases) the ability to act with courage in a morally and ethically correct way, i.e. a “worthy” person, (3) the objects that people possess and that are greatly valued, “wealth” or an attribute of people who possess these objects, the following is clear: it is predominantly an attribute of able-bodied men, in particular soldiers. It refers to their ability to fight well, in other words, they are skilled warriors, and this ability often accompanies a degree of inner strength, i.e. bravery. lyIj' also often refers to people who provide (political) strength, a large group of people, often armed for fighting. In a few cases no contextual frame of warfare is directly involved. This lexical item is seldom (78) Ps 65,7; 1 Chr 29,12; 2 Chr 20,6; Job 26,12; Mic 3,8. (79) Ps 21,14. (80) Van Steenbergen provides convincing arguments and evidence in support of such an interpretation of near-synonyms in semantic parallelisms. [G.J. VAN STEENBERGEN, “Semantics, World View and Bible Translation: An integrated analysis of a selection of Hebrew lexical items referring to negative moral behaviour in the book of Isaiah” (unpublished doctoral dissertation at the University of Stellenbosch) (Stellenbosch 2002)]. (81) 1 Chr 26,8 reads hd:bo[}l' j'KoB' lyIj'Avyai.