[hannibaal]

Im not Jewish, I am a maronite christian whose grandparents came from lebanon. According to the greeks, queen elissa of tyre(still a city in lebanon) founded carthage after being exiled by her brother. The language they spoke is similar to aramaic which is still spoken by some maronite priests (or that may be syriac which is a more modern version) and is similar to ancient hebrew aswell.
I can see how it may mean lightning, with my limited understanding of arabic I know the word “barq” is lightning. The semitic group of languages is huge but they do have alot of similarities in some words. Upon googling what blessed was in arabic(because i didnt know theword off the topof my head) it seems to be “barak” so i can see why it can mean either. I do think lightning is more apt though.

[rmlew]

The Phoenicians spoke a Northwestern Semitic Language, normally considered of the "Canaanite" family, just like Hebrew, Cannanite, Ammonite and Moabite. Aramaic is its own branch of the Northwestern Semitic Family of languages.
The problem is that we are getting information from the Roman's who not only had their own axe to grind, but didn't necessarily transliterated names properly. For instance, the Romans refer to Elishat as Dido.