Paronomasia or Wordplay? A Babel-Like Confusion Towards A Definition of Hebrew Wordplay 1 By creating a play between the sound and the meaning of words, the language within Hebrew wordplay is often ambiguous. This intrinsic ambiguity is sometimes a real obstacle when attempting to grasp the Hebrew wordplay and fully understand the literary context of the Bib- lical passage in which the wordplay is used. Not recognizing the pres- ence of the wordplay has often led to its minimization as a “strange” or “much discussed” word combination. Nevertheless, it is exactly this linguistic ambiguity that creates the possibility of an enriched exege- sis of the Hebrew text. Many scholars discuss this enriching quality of wordplay in either a particular Bible book or a specific passage, but ― with the exception of some surveys and poetic manuals ― very lit- tle systematic research has used wordplay in the Hebrew Bible as a point of departure 2. The work of I.M. Casanowicz, which dates from 1894, seems to be the last systematic survey of Hebrew wordplay 3. More recently, only the dissertation of R.T. Cherry (1988) can be men- tioned as an attempt to bring some unity to the diverse opinions that characterize the many minor studies on Hebrew wordplay 4. This contribution aims to clarify what exactly is meant when one names certain Hebrew constructions “wordplay”. Moreover, a defi- 1 This contribution reflects a part of the Master’s thesis of Valérie Ka- bergs, which was supervised by Prof. dr. Hans Ausloos (UCL, Belgium and UFS, South Africa). It was written as a preliminary study within the broader project “The Development of Content-Related Criteria in the Characteriza- tion of LXX Translation Technique. A Text-Critical Study of the Greek Ren- dering of Hebrew Wordplay” which is now supervised by Prof. dr. Bénédicte Lemmelijn, and is funded by the Research Council of the KU Leuven. 2 Cf. e.g. the surveys of L. ALONSO SCHÖKEL, A Manual of Hebrew Poe- tics (SubBi 11; Rome 1988) 20-33 and W.G.E. WATSON, Classical Hebrew Poetry. A Guide to Its Techniques (JSOT SS 26; Sheffield 21995) 237-250. 3 I.M. CASANOWICZ, Paronomasia in the Old Testament (Ph.D. Disserta- tion Johns Hopkins University; Boston, MA 1894). Cf. his earlier published article “Paronomasia in the Old Testament”, JBL 12 (1893) 105-167. 4 R.T. CHERRY, Paronomasia and Proper Names in the Old Testament. Rhetorical Function and Literary Effect (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation Sou- thern Baptist Theological Seminary; Louisville, KY 1988). BIBLICA 93.1 (2012) 1-20