What colour is the dove's plumage?: a study of the colour adjective yraraq in Ps 68.1.

Abstract

Psalm 68 is well known for the difficulties of interpretation it presents. As YHWH addresses his people using the image of a dove, the poet describes its wings and plumage through a beautiful parallelism and a recurrent literary motif: that of silver-gold. However, unlike silver, the gold here is described with the adjectival lexeme yraqraq, suggesting a hue which has been much discussed both among exegetes and in modern versions of the Bible. Today, the field of cognitive linguistics provides us with a theoretical framework and a series of useful lexicographical tools for this study, including the need for an encyclopaedic knowledge that will situate us in the world of speaker. From this, we can deepen our knowledge of the psalm’s context and the referents of the colour term: dove and gold. We have concluded that the dove’s plumage is imbued with a greenish gold colour.