"Hagar"

[Jim Stinehart]

“Hagar” : HGR : Hgr : “sheepfold”/“hungry” [later “Arab”]

HGR : “Hagar” is generally thought to mean “flight”, based in large part on the fact that an Arabic noun derived from this root serves as the name for Mohammed's famous flight, the Hegira. But instead of stopping with that west Semitic-only analysis, let’s ask if there may also be, in addition, an Egyptian meaning for HGR, considering that Hagar was, after all, born in Egypt.

On pharaoh Shoshenq’s list of places conquered in Canaan, ḥgr or Hgr (as a noun) means “sheepfold” [Edward Lipinski, “On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age” (2006), p. 105], and centuries later came to mean “Arab” [Okasha El Daly, “Egyptology: The Missing Millennium: Ancient Egyptian in Medieval Arabic Writings” (2005), p. 14]. [Egyptian had three heths. The one that might be called a “soft heth”, being a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, is alternatively rendered as an under-dotted lower case h, that is ḥ, or (in the Buurman transliteration scheme) as a capital H. (It is Gardiner hieroglyph V28/wick.) Thus Hgr (meaning “Arab” in the 1st millennium BCE) and ḥgr are simply two different ways of transliterating the same Egyptian word. It is possible that Hebrew he/H might be used to render this Egyptian soft heth; alternatively (and much more likely), however, if the Egyptian soft heth would ordinarily be rendered by the Hebrew letter heth/X, then Hebrew he/H may be used in HGR as a pun [he/H vs. heth/X], precisely in order to be able to generate the west Semitic meaning of “flight”.]

Now consider that in Egyptian, ḥgr = ḥqr. Per the leading Egyptian linguist Loprieno, ḥqr (as an adjective) means “hungry” in Egyptian. Antonio Loprieno, “Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction” (1995), p. 218.

Now let’s connect the dots. Would the Egyptians have linked “hungry”/ḥgr to “sheepfold”/ḥgr? Probably Yes, based on this notable statement in the Patriarchal narratives:

“[E]very shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.” Genesis 46: 34

“Hagar”/HGR may well be based (in part) on the Egyptian word ḥgr/Hgr. Its literal meaning in Egyptian was “hungry” and/or “sheepfold”, and it was a somewhat derogatory reference to persons whose modest living was tending sheep and goats. It is likely that Hagar’s parents had been shepherds in Canaan (whose native language was Canaanite/pre-Hebrew), who had been forced by the longstanding drought conditions in Late Bronze Age Canaan to migrate to Egypt, where their daughter Hagar was born. They were delighted to be able to sell their daughter to Abram as a servant. (Native Egyptians would not do such a thing!) Although Hagar was born in Egypt, nevertheless ethnically she was a Canaanite, and she was a native west Semitic speaker.

As Arabs became prominent centuries later, the Egyptians used the term ḥgr [Hgr] (on a somewhat derogatory basis) to apply to Arabs, the majority of whom tended sheep and goats for a living. (Such term was not used as a synonym for “Canaanites”, because Canaan, unlike Arabia, was largely urban.)

The importance of the underlying meaning of the name “Hagar” is to let the audience know that Hagar, though born and raised in Egypt, was not really an “Egyptian”. All of Hagar’s ancestors were Canaanites, where they had tended sheep and goats (like the Hebrew Patriarchs). Hagar was not literally an Arab, yet she is a fitting symbolic first Arab, since her ancestors’ lifestyle was similar to that of many of the first Arabs: tending sheep and goats in western Asia near Egypt. (Hagar’s ancestors lived in Canaan, whereas the Arabs’ ancestors lived south of Canaan in Arabia.)

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Isaac Fried]

Indeed, it stands to reason that the name הגר HAGAR is the compound HA-GAR, where גר GAR is 'dwell' in the sense of moving around as a free אזרח EZRAX (אסרח). In Job 19:29 גוּר GUR has the sense of 'disperse', while in Hag. 2:19 מגוּרה MGURAH = M-GUR-AH, 'barn, silo, is related to the act אגר AGAR, 'collect, store, assemble', as in Prov. 6:8. Also, to the acts גרר GARAR used now in the sense of 'drag', and to the act נגר NAGAR, (related, in turn, to נהר, נחר, נכר, נקר), 'flow, spill, spread out', as in 2Sam.14:14.

The initial HA may well be the personal pronoun היא 'he, she', which is but a soft version of חי 'alive' (it is not for nothing that both ה and ח are both firmly standing erect on two strong feet) and אח 'brother'.

Thus HA-GAR is plausibly חי - גר or אח-גר 'living as a nomad'.

The act חגר XAGAR is 'gird', and may apply to an enclosure, or a pen, as in English: guard = yard = garden = gird = hoard.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Jim Stinehart]

Isaac Fried:

1. I agree with your west Semitic/Hebrew analysis of “Hagar” : HGR. GR fits Hagar’s situation well.

2. You wrote: “The act חגר XAGAR is 'gird', and may apply to an enclosure, or a pen, as in English: guard = yard = garden = gird = hoard.”

That is fascinating. In Egyptian, Hgr as a noun means “enclosure/pen/sheepfold”. Same.

3. The point I am making is that the name “Hagar” : HGR is deliberately designed to make good sense in both west Semitic/Hebrew a-n-d Egyptian.

The early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives is far more brilliant linguistically than scholars realize.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois