Jim says: then why does Leviticus 26: 42 have plene spelling of that name? Namely יעקוב
I say: Because some scribe, some 2500 years ago, decided to insert a waw there to increase, he thought, the readability of the text.
Jim says: what leads scholars to make the manifestly untenable claim that the name of Esau’s first wife was allegedly “Jewess”
I say: No one makes this ridiculous claim, unless as a scholastic act of merriment. The name יהוד YHUD is in my opinion the compound יה-הוא-עד YA-HU-AD.
curiously, the city name PITOM of Ex. 1:11 is written just פתם with no reading props whatsoever. The LXX render it Πιϑωμ as punctuated.
The LXX render פוטיפר of Gen. 39:1 and Gen. 37:36
Πετεϕρης ὁ εὐνοῦχος Φαραω and Πετεϕρη τῷ σπάδοντι Φαραω.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
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Isaac Fried
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Jim Stinehart
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Re: Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
“Pharaoh”
Let me now supplement here my prior brief explanation of the Biblical Egyptian name “Pharaoh”.
“Pharaoh” is פרעה [PRע H/peh-resh-ayin/ghayin-he].
Scholars view that as being the Hebrew rendering of the Egyptian word for “great-house”, which is pr‘’, or per the standard Buurman transliteration: praA [where lower-case a is Egyptian ayin, and upper-case A is Egyptian aleph]. In Egyptian, “great-house” is spelled with two hieroglyphs, Gardiner numbers O1 – O29, where O1 is house and phonemically is the biliteral pr, and O29 is wood column and phonemically is the biliteral ‘’ or aA.
The scholarly analysis does not work linguistically, however, because no scholar has been able to explain the last Hebrew letter, ה/H/he. Since scholars never consider a defective spelling analysis [which is the only legitimate analysis of names in the Patriarchal narratives], scholars try to semi-explain that final H as being some sort of an inexplicable vowel indicator. Here is the leading, if old, scholarly explanation of “Pharaoh”, by Thomas O. Lambdin, in his 1953 classic article “Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament” at p. 153:
“Par‘oh, ‘the Pharaoh, king of Egypt’. The original form of this Pr-‘3, ‘great house’, Copt. (p)erro, used as early as the Old Kingdom as a designation of the Egyptian ruler. As Steindorff and Ranke have already pointed out, the word occurs in cuneiform transcription as pir’u, reflecting a contemporary Eg. *per‘o3. The date of the borrowing is somewhat difficult to determine since the Egyptian form was doubtlessly approx. *per‘a3 for a considerable period of time before c. 1200 B. C. and per‘o after that date. If the form were borrowed as *per‘a3, one would expect *per‘a(’) or the like, unless the quiescence of the final aleph took place in some dialects of Canaanite before the a > o shift ceased to be operative (c. 1400 B. C.) . Or, the tonal lengthened a may have changed in coastal areas to o and been taken thus into Hebrew: *per‘a(3) >*per‘a(’) > *per ‘?’ > Heb. par‘oh (sometime between 1200 and 1000 B. C.; cf. Harris, Development of the Canaanite Dialects, p. 61).”
On the substantive level, note that native Egyptians rarely referred to their king by the odd nickname “great-house”. Why then would the Bible be thought to have picked up such an obscure Egyptian nickname for the king of Egypt?
With the scholarly explanation of “Pharaoh” not working linguistically and being highly suspect substantively as well, what is needed is to do as university scholars never do: try a defective spelling analysis of this name in the Patriarchal narratives.
Per defective spelling, the four Hebrew letters פרעה [PRע H/peh-resh-ayin/ghayin-he] render four well-known single-syllable Egyptian words, in each case with the Hebrew letter supplying only the true consonant. As to vowels, either an aleph, or an ayin in non-initial position, must be supplied in all four cases. [We know from the cuneiform writing of the Amarna Letters that in cuneiform, Egyptian aleph and, in non-initial position, Egyptian ayin were treated as generic vowel indicators. So those two Egyptian phonemes will not be represented by their own separate Hebrew letter in Hebrew defective spelling.]
פ/peh/P is p, and implies pA, meaning “the”.
ר/resh/R is r, and implies ra, meaning “[the sun-god] Ra”.
Those are the same two Hebrew letters, with the same Egyptian meaning, as are found at the end of the name "Potiphar": PR = pA ra = the [sun-god] Ra.
ע/ghayin/ġ is ghayin, not ayin. The Hebrew letter ghayin is used to render the only one of the three Egyptian heths that, like Hebrew ghayin, is a velar fricative. The Buurman transliteration of that type of Egyptian heth is lower-case x. Implying Egyptian aleph at the beginning, we have Ax, being the Egyptian word for “spirit” or “soul”.
ה/he/H is used to render the softest guttural of the three Egyptian heths, which is rendered in Buurman transliteration as upper-case X. Implying a following Egyptian aleph, we have: XA. That Egyptian word means “body”.
On that basis, פרעה [PRע H/peh-resh-ghayin-he] is pA ra Ax XA, meaning: “body and soul of the Ra”. Each king of Egypt’s grandest title was sA ra, meaning “son of Ra”, so on a generic level, it makes sense to refer to each king of Egypt as being the “body and soul of the sun-god Ra”.
But in the context of Year 13, we see here a specific reference to Akhenaten’s historical name. The first three letters, פרע [PRע /peh-resh-ghayin], are pA ra Ax, meaning: “spirit of the sun-god Ra”. That’s the exact meaning of the name “Akhenaten” : Ax – n – itn, which literally is “spirit of Aten”, but effectively means “spirit of the sun-god Ra”. Moreover, as of Year 13, we know that Akhenaten had come to favor “Ra” nomenclature over “Aten”, because although he had named his first four daughters after Aten, he named his last two daughters after Ra. So a Year 13 version of his historical name would then be Akh – The Ra : Ax pA ra, and the first three letters of “Pharaoh” are the same: פרע [PRע /peh-resh-ghayin], pA ra Ax, meaning: “spirit of the sun-god Ra”.
* * *
If we are willing to apply a defective spelling analysis, these otherwise mysterious non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives suddenly make perfect sense, on all levels, in the context of Year 13. “Pharaoh” on a generic level can apply to any king of Egypt, since each king of Egypt as a “son of Ra”/sA ra was in some sense the “body and soul of the sun-god Ra”. But more specifically, the first three Hebrew letters of “Pharaoh” are a slightly disguised rendering of Akhenaten’s historical name Ax – n - itn: “spirit of the sun-god Ra”.
As we are beginning to see, each non-Hebrew name in the Patriarchal narratives makes complete sense, and has an ideal underlying meaning, if we rigorously apply defective spelling [as no university scholar has ever done], and consider that underlying meaning in the historical context of Year 13.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
Let me now supplement here my prior brief explanation of the Biblical Egyptian name “Pharaoh”.
“Pharaoh” is פרעה [PRע H/peh-resh-ayin/ghayin-he].
Scholars view that as being the Hebrew rendering of the Egyptian word for “great-house”, which is pr‘’, or per the standard Buurman transliteration: praA [where lower-case a is Egyptian ayin, and upper-case A is Egyptian aleph]. In Egyptian, “great-house” is spelled with two hieroglyphs, Gardiner numbers O1 – O29, where O1 is house and phonemically is the biliteral pr, and O29 is wood column and phonemically is the biliteral ‘’ or aA.
The scholarly analysis does not work linguistically, however, because no scholar has been able to explain the last Hebrew letter, ה/H/he. Since scholars never consider a defective spelling analysis [which is the only legitimate analysis of names in the Patriarchal narratives], scholars try to semi-explain that final H as being some sort of an inexplicable vowel indicator. Here is the leading, if old, scholarly explanation of “Pharaoh”, by Thomas O. Lambdin, in his 1953 classic article “Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament” at p. 153:
“Par‘oh, ‘the Pharaoh, king of Egypt’. The original form of this Pr-‘3, ‘great house’, Copt. (p)erro, used as early as the Old Kingdom as a designation of the Egyptian ruler. As Steindorff and Ranke have already pointed out, the word occurs in cuneiform transcription as pir’u, reflecting a contemporary Eg. *per‘o3. The date of the borrowing is somewhat difficult to determine since the Egyptian form was doubtlessly approx. *per‘a3 for a considerable period of time before c. 1200 B. C. and per‘o after that date. If the form were borrowed as *per‘a3, one would expect *per‘a(’) or the like, unless the quiescence of the final aleph took place in some dialects of Canaanite before the a > o shift ceased to be operative (c. 1400 B. C.) . Or, the tonal lengthened a may have changed in coastal areas to o and been taken thus into Hebrew: *per‘a(3) >*per‘a(’) > *per ‘?’ > Heb. par‘oh (sometime between 1200 and 1000 B. C.; cf. Harris, Development of the Canaanite Dialects, p. 61).”
On the substantive level, note that native Egyptians rarely referred to their king by the odd nickname “great-house”. Why then would the Bible be thought to have picked up such an obscure Egyptian nickname for the king of Egypt?
With the scholarly explanation of “Pharaoh” not working linguistically and being highly suspect substantively as well, what is needed is to do as university scholars never do: try a defective spelling analysis of this name in the Patriarchal narratives.
Per defective spelling, the four Hebrew letters פרעה [PRע H/peh-resh-ayin/ghayin-he] render four well-known single-syllable Egyptian words, in each case with the Hebrew letter supplying only the true consonant. As to vowels, either an aleph, or an ayin in non-initial position, must be supplied in all four cases. [We know from the cuneiform writing of the Amarna Letters that in cuneiform, Egyptian aleph and, in non-initial position, Egyptian ayin were treated as generic vowel indicators. So those two Egyptian phonemes will not be represented by their own separate Hebrew letter in Hebrew defective spelling.]
פ/peh/P is p, and implies pA, meaning “the”.
ר/resh/R is r, and implies ra, meaning “[the sun-god] Ra”.
Those are the same two Hebrew letters, with the same Egyptian meaning, as are found at the end of the name "Potiphar": PR = pA ra = the [sun-god] Ra.
ע/ghayin/ġ is ghayin, not ayin. The Hebrew letter ghayin is used to render the only one of the three Egyptian heths that, like Hebrew ghayin, is a velar fricative. The Buurman transliteration of that type of Egyptian heth is lower-case x. Implying Egyptian aleph at the beginning, we have Ax, being the Egyptian word for “spirit” or “soul”.
ה/he/H is used to render the softest guttural of the three Egyptian heths, which is rendered in Buurman transliteration as upper-case X. Implying a following Egyptian aleph, we have: XA. That Egyptian word means “body”.
On that basis, פרעה [PRע H/peh-resh-ghayin-he] is pA ra Ax XA, meaning: “body and soul of the Ra”. Each king of Egypt’s grandest title was sA ra, meaning “son of Ra”, so on a generic level, it makes sense to refer to each king of Egypt as being the “body and soul of the sun-god Ra”.
But in the context of Year 13, we see here a specific reference to Akhenaten’s historical name. The first three letters, פרע [PRע /peh-resh-ghayin], are pA ra Ax, meaning: “spirit of the sun-god Ra”. That’s the exact meaning of the name “Akhenaten” : Ax – n – itn, which literally is “spirit of Aten”, but effectively means “spirit of the sun-god Ra”. Moreover, as of Year 13, we know that Akhenaten had come to favor “Ra” nomenclature over “Aten”, because although he had named his first four daughters after Aten, he named his last two daughters after Ra. So a Year 13 version of his historical name would then be Akh – The Ra : Ax pA ra, and the first three letters of “Pharaoh” are the same: פרע [PRע /peh-resh-ghayin], pA ra Ax, meaning: “spirit of the sun-god Ra”.
* * *
If we are willing to apply a defective spelling analysis, these otherwise mysterious non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives suddenly make perfect sense, on all levels, in the context of Year 13. “Pharaoh” on a generic level can apply to any king of Egypt, since each king of Egypt as a “son of Ra”/sA ra was in some sense the “body and soul of the sun-god Ra”. But more specifically, the first three Hebrew letters of “Pharaoh” are a slightly disguised rendering of Akhenaten’s historical name Ax – n - itn: “spirit of the sun-god Ra”.
As we are beginning to see, each non-Hebrew name in the Patriarchal narratives makes complete sense, and has an ideal underlying meaning, if we rigorously apply defective spelling [as no university scholar has ever done], and consider that underlying meaning in the historical context of Year 13.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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Isaac Fried
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Re: Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
1. The spelling פרעה is possibly insinuatingly disparaging.
2. In 2Ki. 23:29 we encounter פרעה נכה who was possibly a limper. Compare 2S 4:4.
3. In Jer. 44:30 we encounter פרעה חפרע which just does not sound good. It so happens in Hebrew that the letter א is often found in positive words, whereas the letter ע is often found in negative words, for instance, גאל GAAL, 'redeem', and געל GAAL, 'loath', as in Lev. 26:43.
I see in the Hebrew press that some people disapprovingly refer to גאוה 'pride', as געוה with an Ayin.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
2. In 2Ki. 23:29 we encounter פרעה נכה who was possibly a limper. Compare 2S 4:4.
3. In Jer. 44:30 we encounter פרעה חפרע which just does not sound good. It so happens in Hebrew that the letter א is often found in positive words, whereas the letter ע is often found in negative words, for instance, גאל GAAL, 'redeem', and געל GAAL, 'loath', as in Lev. 26:43.
I see in the Hebrew press that some people disapprovingly refer to גאוה 'pride', as געוה with an Ayin.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
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Jim Stinehart
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Re: Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
Isaac Fried:
You wrote: “The spelling פרעה is possibly insinuatingly disparaging. ... In Jer. 44:30 we encounter פרעה חפרע which just does not sound good. It so happens in Hebrew that the letter א is often found in positive words, whereas the letter ע is often found in negative words, for instance, גאל GAAL, 'redeem', and געל GAAL, 'loath', as in Lev. 26:43. I see in the Hebrew press that some people disapprovingly refer to גאוה 'pride', as געוה with an Ayin.”
You may well be right about that.
In Egyptian, the last two Hebrew letters of the name “Potipherah”, which are רע, were [in my opinion] originally intended to render the Egyptian common word rx, meaning “know”. But the Hebrew audience would know that those same two Hebrew letters, רע, mean “evil” as a Hebrew common word, and in fact are used ten times in that way in the Patriarchal narratives. So in Hebrew alphabetical writing, there is a double entendre, if you will: the Hebrew letters רע mean “know” in Egyptian, but mean “evil” as a Hebrew common word. By the 7th century BCE, the Joseph-in-Egypt segment of the Patriarchal narratives likely appeared embarrassingly pro-Egypt to the Jews of Jerusalem, who by that time had good reason to dislike, if not hate, Egyptian pharaohs. And why should there be such a positive Biblical portrait of an Egyptian high-priest of Ra from On? Those concerns were indirectly addressed by viewing the last two letters in the name “Potipherah” as having a double meaning, with their Hebrew meaning being “evil”.
The same might hold true for “Pharaoh”, which you cite, though it’s not nearly so obvious there. The middle two letters of “Pharaoh”/פרעה are רע, which might be viewed as having the double meaning of “evil” as a Hebrew common word. The name pA ra Ax XA sounds good in Egyptian, and would be expected to be recorded in defective Hebrew spelling by what we see as “Pharaoh” in the Biblical text: פרעה. But on the other hand, you may very well be right that those four Hebrew letters may sound “insinuatingly disparaging” in Hebrew to a Hebrew native speaker.
* * *
Your reference to Jeremiah 44: 30 raises several interesting technical issues. The name of exilic Pharaoh “Chophra”, or Haa-ib-ra in Egyptian, properly starts with the Hebrew letter ח, representing the underdotted Egyptian heth in the Egyptian spelling of this pharaoh’s name. The Egyptian underscored heth [a mild guttural] in the Egyptian word XA [meaning “body] is, in my view, properly rendered by the Hebrew letter ה in “Pharaoh” [upper-case X in Buurman transliteration]. And in both “Pharaoh” and “Potipherah”, we see [in my view] the Hebrew letter ע properly used as a ghayin to render Egyptian under-breve heth [a velar fricative, being lower-case x in Buurman transliteration]: in “Pharaoh” as Ax meaning “spirit”, and in “Potipherah” as rx meaning “know”. All that fits exactly with what I have been saying on this thread.
However, by the time we get to Jeremiah in exilic and post-exilic times, the last two letters of “Potipherah”, רע, which actually [in my opinion] represent the Egyptian word “know” spelled rx in Egyptian [with the Hebrew letter ע being a ghayin there], unfortunately were now apparently taken as representing “Ra” in Egyptian [with the Hebrew letter ע being an ayin], just as is the modern misconception. We see that in the Hebrew spelling of “Chophra” [for Haa-ib-ra, which means “Jubilant Is the Heart of Ra”]. That is to say, Jeremiah erroneously apparently sees the last letter in “Potipherah”, which is Hebrew ע, as being an ayin, rather than as being the ghayin that [in my opinion] it was originally intended to represent. So the misunderstanding of the Biblical Egyptian names “Potiphar” and “Pharaoh” may accordingly go all the long way back to the 6th century BCE, in exilic and post-exilic times, rather than being a new misunderstanding by modern scholars.
Perhaps your insight above was a factor in this. Jeremiah hated the pharaohs of Egypt, so why not render the pharaonic name “Chophra” in a way that the two Hebrew letters at the end of that name have the double meaning of being the Hebrew common word for “evil”, as well as being newly interpreted [as opposed to what such letters originally meant in “Potipherah”] to mean “the sun-god Ra” in Egyptian?
Isaac Fried, thank you for your insights on this.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
You wrote: “The spelling פרעה is possibly insinuatingly disparaging. ... In Jer. 44:30 we encounter פרעה חפרע which just does not sound good. It so happens in Hebrew that the letter א is often found in positive words, whereas the letter ע is often found in negative words, for instance, גאל GAAL, 'redeem', and געל GAAL, 'loath', as in Lev. 26:43. I see in the Hebrew press that some people disapprovingly refer to גאוה 'pride', as געוה with an Ayin.”
You may well be right about that.
In Egyptian, the last two Hebrew letters of the name “Potipherah”, which are רע, were [in my opinion] originally intended to render the Egyptian common word rx, meaning “know”. But the Hebrew audience would know that those same two Hebrew letters, רע, mean “evil” as a Hebrew common word, and in fact are used ten times in that way in the Patriarchal narratives. So in Hebrew alphabetical writing, there is a double entendre, if you will: the Hebrew letters רע mean “know” in Egyptian, but mean “evil” as a Hebrew common word. By the 7th century BCE, the Joseph-in-Egypt segment of the Patriarchal narratives likely appeared embarrassingly pro-Egypt to the Jews of Jerusalem, who by that time had good reason to dislike, if not hate, Egyptian pharaohs. And why should there be such a positive Biblical portrait of an Egyptian high-priest of Ra from On? Those concerns were indirectly addressed by viewing the last two letters in the name “Potipherah” as having a double meaning, with their Hebrew meaning being “evil”.
The same might hold true for “Pharaoh”, which you cite, though it’s not nearly so obvious there. The middle two letters of “Pharaoh”/פרעה are רע, which might be viewed as having the double meaning of “evil” as a Hebrew common word. The name pA ra Ax XA sounds good in Egyptian, and would be expected to be recorded in defective Hebrew spelling by what we see as “Pharaoh” in the Biblical text: פרעה. But on the other hand, you may very well be right that those four Hebrew letters may sound “insinuatingly disparaging” in Hebrew to a Hebrew native speaker.
* * *
Your reference to Jeremiah 44: 30 raises several interesting technical issues. The name of exilic Pharaoh “Chophra”, or Haa-ib-ra in Egyptian, properly starts with the Hebrew letter ח, representing the underdotted Egyptian heth in the Egyptian spelling of this pharaoh’s name. The Egyptian underscored heth [a mild guttural] in the Egyptian word XA [meaning “body] is, in my view, properly rendered by the Hebrew letter ה in “Pharaoh” [upper-case X in Buurman transliteration]. And in both “Pharaoh” and “Potipherah”, we see [in my view] the Hebrew letter ע properly used as a ghayin to render Egyptian under-breve heth [a velar fricative, being lower-case x in Buurman transliteration]: in “Pharaoh” as Ax meaning “spirit”, and in “Potipherah” as rx meaning “know”. All that fits exactly with what I have been saying on this thread.
However, by the time we get to Jeremiah in exilic and post-exilic times, the last two letters of “Potipherah”, רע, which actually [in my opinion] represent the Egyptian word “know” spelled rx in Egyptian [with the Hebrew letter ע being a ghayin there], unfortunately were now apparently taken as representing “Ra” in Egyptian [with the Hebrew letter ע being an ayin], just as is the modern misconception. We see that in the Hebrew spelling of “Chophra” [for Haa-ib-ra, which means “Jubilant Is the Heart of Ra”]. That is to say, Jeremiah erroneously apparently sees the last letter in “Potipherah”, which is Hebrew ע, as being an ayin, rather than as being the ghayin that [in my opinion] it was originally intended to represent. So the misunderstanding of the Biblical Egyptian names “Potiphar” and “Pharaoh” may accordingly go all the long way back to the 6th century BCE, in exilic and post-exilic times, rather than being a new misunderstanding by modern scholars.
Perhaps your insight above was a factor in this. Jeremiah hated the pharaohs of Egypt, so why not render the pharaonic name “Chophra” in a way that the two Hebrew letters at the end of that name have the double meaning of being the Hebrew common word for “evil”, as well as being newly interpreted [as opposed to what such letters originally meant in “Potipherah”] to mean “the sun-god Ra” in Egyptian?
Isaac Fried, thank you for your insights on this.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
“Judith” : “Jewess” [?!?!?!]
In response to my statement [in a prior post on this thread] that scholars make the manifestly untenable claim that the name of Esau’s first wife was allegedly “Jewess”, Isaac Fried wrote:
”I say: No one makes this ridiculous claim, unless as a scholastic act of merriment. The name יהוד YHUD is in my opinion the compound יה-הוא-עד YA-HU-AD.”
Well, here’s what the leading scholar of Genesis says about the name of Esau’s first wife:
“Esau marries two Hittite women. When Abraham’s intense concern that Isaac should on no account marry a Canaanite is recalled, it is somewhat unexpected that Esau should marry two. The Hittites of Genesis seem to be a subgroup of the Canaanites…. ‘Judith’ only used here as a proper name in the OT. In later texts it means a female Judean, i.e., Jewess.” Gordon Wenham, “Genesis 16-50” (1994), pp. 204-205.
Please note that Gordon Wenham and all other university scholars i-n-s-i-s-t on applying plene spelling to this and other non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives. Why? Why not, for the first time ever, consider defective spelling for each and every one of the many non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives? If these names are old [dating all the long way back to the Bronze Age] and not corrupt, defective spelling should rightly apply. If defective spelling is good enough for the name “Jacob” throughout the Patriarchal narratives, then why isn’t defective spelling good enough for the name of Esau’s first wife as well? Scholars insist that the third letter in the name of Esau’s first wife, which is ו/vav/W, is a generic vowel indicator per plene spelling, being the vowel element of a consonant-vowel syllable. Not! If people would be willing to consider defective spelling, a proper evaluation of this name quickly manifests itself.
Genesis 26: 34 tells us that the name of Esau’s first wife was: יהודית [YHWDYT/yod he vav dalet yod tav].
The scholarly view is that Esau’s first wife is a Hittite born in Canaan who has a west Semitic name with plene spelling that means “Jewess”, or at least that later meant “Jewess”. I can certainly sympathize with the rationality of Isaac Fried’s guess that “No one makes this ridiculous claim, unless as a scholastic act of merriment”, but in fact that “ridiculous claim” is a mainstream view of university scholars.
Contra the scholarly view, no Hittite was ever born in Canaan, nor are the חתי/XTY in Genesis “a subgroup of the Canaanites”. And no one in the Patriarchal Age had a west Semitic name that means “Jewess”!
Rather than referencing the Hittites, חתי/XTY is either xu-ti-Y, where xu-ti means “praise” in Hurrian and the implied meaning is “the praise [Teshup] people”, or else the Hebrew י/yod/Y does double duty there and the name is then: xu-ti-[y]a-Y, having the same meaning as above, but this time adding the universal theophoric suffix -- a or a-a or ia or ya -- that was particularly commonplace in Hurrian names. Esau marries two Hurrian women who had been born in Canaan: not Hittites, and not Canaanites. Per Genesis 27: 46, Esau’s first two wives are “daughters of the land”. Per Genesis 28: 1, Isaac admonishes Jacob not to marry a “daughter of Canaan” (and this thought is repeated at Genesis 28: 6). Note that Esau’s two XTY wives are not said to be Canaanites, or even daughters of Canaan, but rather are said at Genesis 27: 46 to be “daughters of the land”; that means that Esau’s first two wives had been born in Canaan and they planned to live their entire lives in Canaan, but that does not necessarily mean that they are ethnic Canaanites [whose native language was west Semitic].
Esau’s first two wives are in fact ethnic Hurrians who had been born in Canaan (a situation that was commonplace in Year 13, but not earlier or later than that). As such, Esau’s first two wives, and their multitudinous Hurrian relatives set forth in detail in chapter 36 of Genesis, all have Hurrian names, not west Semitic names. And as is always the key consideration regarding non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, these Hurrian names use defective spelling, not plene spelling. So the name of Esau’s first wife, mis-transliterated as “Judith”, is a Hurrian name using defective spelling.
The ו/vav/W as the third Hebrew letter in the six-letter name יהודית [YHWDYT/yod he vav dalet yod tav] is not plene spelling of a vowel in a consonant-vowel syllable, per the plene spelling analysis that scholars always use for this name. Rather, these six Hebrew letters are rendering six separate Hurrian syllables: a-xi-ú-di-[y]a-T. Hurrian is very partial to vowel-only syllables, and we see three such vowel-only syllables here. [In rendering Hurrian names, the Hebrew letter י/yod/Y is consistently used to represent the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable, and Hebrew ו/vav/W is also its own separate syllable.] As with the name “Pharaoh”, Hebrew ה/he/H in this Hurrian name is representing a type of non-west Semitic heth. The name of Esau’s first wife is, in fact, a mere play on חתי/XTY, being a longer version thereof [with different spelling, with for example D and T being interchangeable in Hurrian], but having the same basic meaning: “Praise Teshup”. [The final T is a Hurrian feminine ending.] xu-ti-[y]a-Y vs. a-xi-ú-di-[y]a-T.
The key in all these cases is to insist on defective spelling. In dozens of Hurrian names throughout the Patriarchal narratives, those vowel-only Hurrian syllables are right there in the received text, if only one realizes that defective spelling always applies in all of these cases. The best way to spell in Hebrew the Hurrian woman’s name a-xi-ú-di-[y]a-T, which features three vowel-only syllables, is precisely what we see in the received Masoretic text: יהודית [YHWDYT/yod he vav dalet yod tav]. That name is not inexplicable, nor is it plene spelling of a west Semitic name of a “Hittite” having the absurd, anachronistic meaning of “Jewess”. No, it’s a vintage Hurrian name, fully redolent of the Patriarchs’ Canaan in Year 13.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
In response to my statement [in a prior post on this thread] that scholars make the manifestly untenable claim that the name of Esau’s first wife was allegedly “Jewess”, Isaac Fried wrote:
”I say: No one makes this ridiculous claim, unless as a scholastic act of merriment. The name יהוד YHUD is in my opinion the compound יה-הוא-עד YA-HU-AD.”
Well, here’s what the leading scholar of Genesis says about the name of Esau’s first wife:
“Esau marries two Hittite women. When Abraham’s intense concern that Isaac should on no account marry a Canaanite is recalled, it is somewhat unexpected that Esau should marry two. The Hittites of Genesis seem to be a subgroup of the Canaanites…. ‘Judith’ only used here as a proper name in the OT. In later texts it means a female Judean, i.e., Jewess.” Gordon Wenham, “Genesis 16-50” (1994), pp. 204-205.
Please note that Gordon Wenham and all other university scholars i-n-s-i-s-t on applying plene spelling to this and other non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives. Why? Why not, for the first time ever, consider defective spelling for each and every one of the many non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives? If these names are old [dating all the long way back to the Bronze Age] and not corrupt, defective spelling should rightly apply. If defective spelling is good enough for the name “Jacob” throughout the Patriarchal narratives, then why isn’t defective spelling good enough for the name of Esau’s first wife as well? Scholars insist that the third letter in the name of Esau’s first wife, which is ו/vav/W, is a generic vowel indicator per plene spelling, being the vowel element of a consonant-vowel syllable. Not! If people would be willing to consider defective spelling, a proper evaluation of this name quickly manifests itself.
Genesis 26: 34 tells us that the name of Esau’s first wife was: יהודית [YHWDYT/yod he vav dalet yod tav].
The scholarly view is that Esau’s first wife is a Hittite born in Canaan who has a west Semitic name with plene spelling that means “Jewess”, or at least that later meant “Jewess”. I can certainly sympathize with the rationality of Isaac Fried’s guess that “No one makes this ridiculous claim, unless as a scholastic act of merriment”, but in fact that “ridiculous claim” is a mainstream view of university scholars.
Contra the scholarly view, no Hittite was ever born in Canaan, nor are the חתי/XTY in Genesis “a subgroup of the Canaanites”. And no one in the Patriarchal Age had a west Semitic name that means “Jewess”!
Rather than referencing the Hittites, חתי/XTY is either xu-ti-Y, where xu-ti means “praise” in Hurrian and the implied meaning is “the praise [Teshup] people”, or else the Hebrew י/yod/Y does double duty there and the name is then: xu-ti-[y]a-Y, having the same meaning as above, but this time adding the universal theophoric suffix -- a or a-a or ia or ya -- that was particularly commonplace in Hurrian names. Esau marries two Hurrian women who had been born in Canaan: not Hittites, and not Canaanites. Per Genesis 27: 46, Esau’s first two wives are “daughters of the land”. Per Genesis 28: 1, Isaac admonishes Jacob not to marry a “daughter of Canaan” (and this thought is repeated at Genesis 28: 6). Note that Esau’s two XTY wives are not said to be Canaanites, or even daughters of Canaan, but rather are said at Genesis 27: 46 to be “daughters of the land”; that means that Esau’s first two wives had been born in Canaan and they planned to live their entire lives in Canaan, but that does not necessarily mean that they are ethnic Canaanites [whose native language was west Semitic].
Esau’s first two wives are in fact ethnic Hurrians who had been born in Canaan (a situation that was commonplace in Year 13, but not earlier or later than that). As such, Esau’s first two wives, and their multitudinous Hurrian relatives set forth in detail in chapter 36 of Genesis, all have Hurrian names, not west Semitic names. And as is always the key consideration regarding non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, these Hurrian names use defective spelling, not plene spelling. So the name of Esau’s first wife, mis-transliterated as “Judith”, is a Hurrian name using defective spelling.
The ו/vav/W as the third Hebrew letter in the six-letter name יהודית [YHWDYT/yod he vav dalet yod tav] is not plene spelling of a vowel in a consonant-vowel syllable, per the plene spelling analysis that scholars always use for this name. Rather, these six Hebrew letters are rendering six separate Hurrian syllables: a-xi-ú-di-[y]a-T. Hurrian is very partial to vowel-only syllables, and we see three such vowel-only syllables here. [In rendering Hurrian names, the Hebrew letter י/yod/Y is consistently used to represent the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable, and Hebrew ו/vav/W is also its own separate syllable.] As with the name “Pharaoh”, Hebrew ה/he/H in this Hurrian name is representing a type of non-west Semitic heth. The name of Esau’s first wife is, in fact, a mere play on חתי/XTY, being a longer version thereof [with different spelling, with for example D and T being interchangeable in Hurrian], but having the same basic meaning: “Praise Teshup”. [The final T is a Hurrian feminine ending.] xu-ti-[y]a-Y vs. a-xi-ú-di-[y]a-T.
The key in all these cases is to insist on defective spelling. In dozens of Hurrian names throughout the Patriarchal narratives, those vowel-only Hurrian syllables are right there in the received text, if only one realizes that defective spelling always applies in all of these cases. The best way to spell in Hebrew the Hurrian woman’s name a-xi-ú-di-[y]a-T, which features three vowel-only syllables, is precisely what we see in the received Masoretic text: יהודית [YHWDYT/yod he vav dalet yod tav]. That name is not inexplicable, nor is it plene spelling of a west Semitic name of a “Hittite” having the absurd, anachronistic meaning of “Jewess”. No, it’s a vintage Hurrian name, fully redolent of the Patriarchs’ Canaan in Year 13.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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Isaac Fried
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Re: Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
The idea that YHUDIYT יהודית is “Jewess” comes from reading the 'suffix' -IYT, 'she is'. This, in correspondence with Esther 2:5
איש יהודי היה בשושן הבירה ושמו מרדכי בן יאיר בן שמעי בן קיש איש ימיני
"Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite" where YHUDIY = YHUD-IY, with -YI being a contracted היא 'he, he is.'
All the names of all his wives end in a personal pronoun, to wit:
עדה ADAH = AD-AH
AHALIYBAMAH = AHALIYBAM-AH אהליבמה
BASMAT = BASM-AT בשמת
YHUDIYT = YHUD-IYT יהודית
MAXLAT = MAXL-AT מחלת
It is conceivable that the name AHALIYBAMAH (the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite, Gen. 36:2) contains אהל OHEL, 'tent tabernacle, sanctuary', and במה BAMAH, 'altar, sacrificial mound'. This possibly inspired Ezekiel 23:4
ושמותן אהלה הגדולה ואהליבה אחותה ותהיינה לי ותלדנה בנים ובנות ושמותן שמרון אהלה וירושלם אהליבה
"And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah." Namely, Aholibah = 'my tent is situated in her'.
איש יהודי היה בשושן הבירה ושמו מרדכי בן יאיר בן שמעי בן קיש איש ימיני
"Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite" where YHUDIY = YHUD-IY, with -YI being a contracted היא 'he, he is.'
All the names of all his wives end in a personal pronoun, to wit:
עדה ADAH = AD-AH
AHALIYBAMAH = AHALIYBAM-AH אהליבמה
BASMAT = BASM-AT בשמת
YHUDIYT = YHUD-IYT יהודית
MAXLAT = MAXL-AT מחלת
It is conceivable that the name AHALIYBAMAH (the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite, Gen. 36:2) contains אהל OHEL, 'tent tabernacle, sanctuary', and במה BAMAH, 'altar, sacrificial mound'. This possibly inspired Ezekiel 23:4
ושמותן אהלה הגדולה ואהליבה אחותה ותהיינה לי ותלדנה בנים ובנות ושמותן שמרון אהלה וירושלם אהליבה
"And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah." Namely, Aholibah = 'my tent is situated in her'.
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Isaac Fried
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Re: Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
Oy vay, I forgot to sign my previous post.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
Isaac Fried, Boston University
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Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
“Bera”
Prior to further analyzing the names of Esau’s wives [a subject to which we can return shortly], I would like first to follow up on a nifty idea from an earlier post by Isaac Fried, in which he suggested that it was deliberate that the names “Potipherah”, “Pharaoh” and “Chophra” all contain the Hebrew letters רע, which as a double entendre is the Hebrew common word for “evil”, so that such Biblical Egyptian names are, in Isaac Fried’s choice words, “insinuatingly disparaging”. Let’s see if that notion may be confirmed regarding the Biblical Hurrian name “Bera”.
The name “Bera” only occurs at Genesis 14: 2. Contra the conventional view, in my opinion Bera has nothing to do with the ruler of the Sodom in Canaan where Melchizedek blesses Abram and Lot at Genesis 14: 19-20. Rather, Bera is the princeling ruler in Year 13 of the other Sodom, namely the Sodom that was located in Hurrian-dominated central Syria, in the Orontes River Valley [the valley of Siddim], whose days end ten verses earlier when Bera of Syria gets stuck in a slimepit [pit of bitumen] at Genesis 14: 10.
“Bera” is ברע : BRע : bet resh ayin/ghayin. In my view, the Hebrew letter ע in non-initial position in this non-Hebrew name in the Patriarchal narratives is Hebrew ghayin/ġ [and is not Hebrew ayin/‘, as ordinarily supposed].
ברע is a Hurrian name [in my view], in which the Hebrew letter ע renders the Hurrian ghayin-heth, which is essentially the same as a Hebrew ghayin, namely ġ. As such, I interpret the Biblical Hurrian name ברע as being Hebrew defective spelling of the Hurrian name bu-ru-uġ. The literal Hurrian meaning is “Strong”; the directly implied Hurrian meaning is “[Teshup Is] Strong”; and the indirectly implied Hurrian meaning is “[the bearer of this name is] Strong”.
But more importantly than all of that, we can now follow up on a fascinating suggestion made by Isaac Fried. In fact, regarding the name “Bera”, noted Genesis scholar Gordon Wenham floats the same basic idea as Isaac Fried did earlier on this thread regarding the names “Potipherah” and “Pharaoh” and “Chophra”, based on the consideration that all four such names feature the Hebrew letters רע, which is the Hebrew spelling of the Hebrew common word that means “evil”:
“ ‘Bera’. The meaning and etymology of the name are uncertain. …It is striking that the king…of Sodom ha[s a] name…compounded with רע ‘evil’…. It is not surprising that from the targumists onward, commentators have suggested that ‘Bera’…[is a] pejorative nickname…given to th[is] king….” Gordon Wenham, “Genesis 1-15” (1987), p. 309.
Thus on one level, ברע is often thought to mean, in Hebrew [though perhaps as a double entendre, rather than as its primary meaning] “In Evil”, where ב is the Hebrew common word for “in”, and רע is the Hebrew common word for “evil”.
We see here one possible reason why the Jewish scribe in late 7th century Jerusalem, who was tasked with transforming into alphabetical Hebrew the mid-14th century BCE cuneiform tablets on which the prose sections of the Patriarchal narratives were written in cuneiform, chose to use the Hebrew letter ע to render the Hurrian ghayin-heth ġ. Even if he had chosen for that function the Hebrew letter ח or the Hebrew letter ה [which at first glance might seem to be more likely choices for a Hurrian heth], the primary meaning of the Hurrian name ברע [or ברח or ברה] would remain bu-ru-uġ. But by making the choice that he did, by which the Hurrian ghayin-heth is rendered by the Hebrew letter ע, that deftly created a double entendre in Hebrew as of the 7th century BCE, where the Hebrew spelling of the Hurrian name ברע can be viewed as implying, on one level, the Hebrew common words “in”/ב and “evil”/רע.
So per Isaac Fried and Gordon Wenham, as interpreted/re-interpreted by me, one of the reasons why the Jewish scribe in late 7th century BCE chose to use the Hebrew letter ע to render in non-initial position a non-west Semitic heth that has some similarity to Hebrew ghayin/ġ, may have been because that then neatly allowed the end of the names “Bera” and “Potipherah”, plus the middle two letters of the name “Pharaoh” as well, to be a double entendre, where רע is the Hebrew common word for “evil”. Please note in this regard that whereas the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives liked Egypt and the Bera of central Syria, the Jews in late 7th century BCE Jerusalem hated Egypt and the ruler of Sodom in Canaan [who by then may have been viewed, as is the modern erroneous view, to be one and the same person as the Bera at Genesis 14: 2]. So in a real sense we are getting a 7th century BCE commentary/midrash here on the Year 13 composition of the Patriarchal narratives 700 years earlier. Neat! By using the Hebrew letter ע to render in non-initial position a non-west Semitic heth that has some similarity to Hebrew ghayin/ġ, that deftly allowed the end of the names “Bera” and “Potipherah”, plus the middle two letters of the name “Pharaoh”, to be a double entendre for the anti-Egypt Jews of 7th century BCE Jerusalem [and for all later Jewish audiences as well], where רע is the Hebrew common word for “evil”.
Jeremiah in the 6th century BCE hated Egypt even more than did the Jews of the 7th century BCE, with Jeremiah having witnessed Egypt fail to prevent Babylon from destroying Jerusalem. So Jeremiah was not going to render a pharaoh’s name in neutral fashion. רע is not in fact the proper, or expected, Hebrew spelling of “Ra”. But Egypt-hating Jeremiah deliberately chose such spelling for the ending of the name of the Egyptian pharaoh Haa-ib-ra, חפרע, at Jeremiah 44: 30 [“Chophra”], so that Jeremiah could thereby subtly suggest that this pharaoh’s very name indicated that such pharaoh was truly “evil” : רע. The Hebrew letters רע were not originally intended to render “Ra”, but rather rendered the Egyptian common word rx, meaning “know”, at the end of the name “Potipherah”. But that delightfully negative double entendre, since רע is the Hebrew common word for “evil”, is what led the post-exilic, Egypt-hating Jeremiah in the 6th century BCE to use רע as the new Hebrew spelling of “Ra”, precisely in order to cast aspersions on Egypt and its hated pharaoh.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
Prior to further analyzing the names of Esau’s wives [a subject to which we can return shortly], I would like first to follow up on a nifty idea from an earlier post by Isaac Fried, in which he suggested that it was deliberate that the names “Potipherah”, “Pharaoh” and “Chophra” all contain the Hebrew letters רע, which as a double entendre is the Hebrew common word for “evil”, so that such Biblical Egyptian names are, in Isaac Fried’s choice words, “insinuatingly disparaging”. Let’s see if that notion may be confirmed regarding the Biblical Hurrian name “Bera”.
The name “Bera” only occurs at Genesis 14: 2. Contra the conventional view, in my opinion Bera has nothing to do with the ruler of the Sodom in Canaan where Melchizedek blesses Abram and Lot at Genesis 14: 19-20. Rather, Bera is the princeling ruler in Year 13 of the other Sodom, namely the Sodom that was located in Hurrian-dominated central Syria, in the Orontes River Valley [the valley of Siddim], whose days end ten verses earlier when Bera of Syria gets stuck in a slimepit [pit of bitumen] at Genesis 14: 10.
“Bera” is ברע : BRע : bet resh ayin/ghayin. In my view, the Hebrew letter ע in non-initial position in this non-Hebrew name in the Patriarchal narratives is Hebrew ghayin/ġ [and is not Hebrew ayin/‘, as ordinarily supposed].
ברע is a Hurrian name [in my view], in which the Hebrew letter ע renders the Hurrian ghayin-heth, which is essentially the same as a Hebrew ghayin, namely ġ. As such, I interpret the Biblical Hurrian name ברע as being Hebrew defective spelling of the Hurrian name bu-ru-uġ. The literal Hurrian meaning is “Strong”; the directly implied Hurrian meaning is “[Teshup Is] Strong”; and the indirectly implied Hurrian meaning is “[the bearer of this name is] Strong”.
But more importantly than all of that, we can now follow up on a fascinating suggestion made by Isaac Fried. In fact, regarding the name “Bera”, noted Genesis scholar Gordon Wenham floats the same basic idea as Isaac Fried did earlier on this thread regarding the names “Potipherah” and “Pharaoh” and “Chophra”, based on the consideration that all four such names feature the Hebrew letters רע, which is the Hebrew spelling of the Hebrew common word that means “evil”:
“ ‘Bera’. The meaning and etymology of the name are uncertain. …It is striking that the king…of Sodom ha[s a] name…compounded with רע ‘evil’…. It is not surprising that from the targumists onward, commentators have suggested that ‘Bera’…[is a] pejorative nickname…given to th[is] king….” Gordon Wenham, “Genesis 1-15” (1987), p. 309.
Thus on one level, ברע is often thought to mean, in Hebrew [though perhaps as a double entendre, rather than as its primary meaning] “In Evil”, where ב is the Hebrew common word for “in”, and רע is the Hebrew common word for “evil”.
We see here one possible reason why the Jewish scribe in late 7th century Jerusalem, who was tasked with transforming into alphabetical Hebrew the mid-14th century BCE cuneiform tablets on which the prose sections of the Patriarchal narratives were written in cuneiform, chose to use the Hebrew letter ע to render the Hurrian ghayin-heth ġ. Even if he had chosen for that function the Hebrew letter ח or the Hebrew letter ה [which at first glance might seem to be more likely choices for a Hurrian heth], the primary meaning of the Hurrian name ברע [or ברח or ברה] would remain bu-ru-uġ. But by making the choice that he did, by which the Hurrian ghayin-heth is rendered by the Hebrew letter ע, that deftly created a double entendre in Hebrew as of the 7th century BCE, where the Hebrew spelling of the Hurrian name ברע can be viewed as implying, on one level, the Hebrew common words “in”/ב and “evil”/רע.
So per Isaac Fried and Gordon Wenham, as interpreted/re-interpreted by me, one of the reasons why the Jewish scribe in late 7th century BCE chose to use the Hebrew letter ע to render in non-initial position a non-west Semitic heth that has some similarity to Hebrew ghayin/ġ, may have been because that then neatly allowed the end of the names “Bera” and “Potipherah”, plus the middle two letters of the name “Pharaoh” as well, to be a double entendre, where רע is the Hebrew common word for “evil”. Please note in this regard that whereas the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives liked Egypt and the Bera of central Syria, the Jews in late 7th century BCE Jerusalem hated Egypt and the ruler of Sodom in Canaan [who by then may have been viewed, as is the modern erroneous view, to be one and the same person as the Bera at Genesis 14: 2]. So in a real sense we are getting a 7th century BCE commentary/midrash here on the Year 13 composition of the Patriarchal narratives 700 years earlier. Neat! By using the Hebrew letter ע to render in non-initial position a non-west Semitic heth that has some similarity to Hebrew ghayin/ġ, that deftly allowed the end of the names “Bera” and “Potipherah”, plus the middle two letters of the name “Pharaoh”, to be a double entendre for the anti-Egypt Jews of 7th century BCE Jerusalem [and for all later Jewish audiences as well], where רע is the Hebrew common word for “evil”.
Jeremiah in the 6th century BCE hated Egypt even more than did the Jews of the 7th century BCE, with Jeremiah having witnessed Egypt fail to prevent Babylon from destroying Jerusalem. So Jeremiah was not going to render a pharaoh’s name in neutral fashion. רע is not in fact the proper, or expected, Hebrew spelling of “Ra”. But Egypt-hating Jeremiah deliberately chose such spelling for the ending of the name of the Egyptian pharaoh Haa-ib-ra, חפרע, at Jeremiah 44: 30 [“Chophra”], so that Jeremiah could thereby subtly suggest that this pharaoh’s very name indicated that such pharaoh was truly “evil” : רע. The Hebrew letters רע were not originally intended to render “Ra”, but rather rendered the Egyptian common word rx, meaning “know”, at the end of the name “Potipherah”. But that delightfully negative double entendre, since רע is the Hebrew common word for “evil”, is what led the post-exilic, Egypt-hating Jeremiah in the 6th century BCE to use רע as the new Hebrew spelling of “Ra”, precisely in order to cast aspersions on Egypt and its hated pharaoh.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
“Seir”
It is my view that Esau’s first two wives are Hurrian women, with Hurrian names. Genesis 26: 34. However, before analyzing the names of Esau’s wives from a linguistic point of view, in this post I would like to set the historical background that applies to Esau’s wives, in the context of analyzing the geographical place name “Seir”.
At the time when Isaac arranged for his favorite [firstborn] son Esau to marry two Hurrian women, Isaac was hoping to thereby connect beloved Esau with the Hurrian princeling power structure in Canaan proper. But alas, the Hurrians’ prominence in Canaan proved to be short-lived, and the fathers of Esau’s two Hurrian wives never ended up becoming princeling rulers in Canaan, as originally hoped. [T-h-a-t is the source of the disappointment of Isaac and Rebekah regarding Esau’s Hurrian wives that is expressed at Genesis 26: 35.] But all was not necessarily lost. Per Esau’s second Hurrian wife, we find out in chapter 36 of Genesis that Esau had powerful Hurrian in-laws in the northern Transjordan [being unexpected Plan B for Esau, in effect]. The prominence of Hurrian princelings in Canaan proper disappeared with great rapidity after Year 13 [with the Hurrians being defeated in Syria in Year 14, per Genesis 14: 5, and pharaoh Akhenaten having already broken off relations with the Hurrian great power state of MDN/MDYN/Midtani in eastern Syria late in Year 12, per the negative reference to XRY/Hurrians at Genesis 40: 16]. But Hurrian princelings by contrast remained a dominant political force in the northern Transjordan for many more generations. Given that historical background, it’s really not so surprising to find Esau leaving Canaan per Genesis 36: 6, and crossing the Jordan River into Gilead in the northern Transjordan in order to join forces with his Hurrian wives’ relatives. Yes, I know that the Biblical text emphasizes that YHWH intended Isaac’s younger twin son, Jacob, to be the son of Isaac who rightfully inherits Canaan proper, which necessitates firstborn son Esau moving out of Canaan. I am just pointing out that the story here also makes complete sense historically, in the context of the world of Year 13.
Genesis 36: 8 says that Esau dwelt in the hill country of “Seir”. “Seir” is a Hurrian name that, as we shall see, effectively means: “the good land of Hurrian-dominated Gilead, where there are plenty of trees”. The western and eastern edges of Gilead are desert. But in Biblical times, central Gilead had a lot of forest, being a veritable “orchard” of trees as it were. That was the good land of Gilead, where crops might be planted, and it was definitely viable for Esau to tend a large flock of sheep and goats there. When Genesis 36: 8 says that Esau dwelt in the hill country of “Seir”, that means that having crossed the Jordan River into the northern Transjordan, Esau thereafter lived in “the good land of Hurrian-dominated Gilead, where there are plenty of trees”.
[Esau’s nickname “Edom”, at Genesis 36: 8b, is a play on words, matching both to the Hebrew common word for “red”, with Esau’s Hurrian-based name I-$i-u meaning “dark red ebony” in Hurrian, and also matching to Udum as a prominent city or site in the northern Transjordan, southeast of the Sea of Galilee, per Amarna Letter EA 256: 24. That clever play on words works in Hebrew because the first letter of the name “Edom”, which is Hebrew aleph, either can function in its own right, hence the Hebrew common word “adam” meaning “red”, or else it can be a prosthetic aleph after which the vowel U is to be implied, in which case it is the geographical place name Udum in the northern Transjordan. I know that “adam” doesn’t look too much like “Udum” in E-n-g-l-i-s-h , but in Hebrew writing they’re essentially identical.]
Linguistic Analysis of “Seir”
The name mis-transliterated by KJV as “Seir” is as follows: שעיר : $ġYR : shin-ghayin-yod-resh.
Since this is a Hurrian name in the Patriarchal narratives, we can be confident that it will have strictly defective spelling. Also, in non-initial position, the Hebrew letter ע in a Hurrian name in the Patriarchal narratives will be a Hebrew ghayin, and will render the Hurrian ghayin-heth. Finally, the Hebrew letter י/yod/Y in a Hurrian name renders the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable.
Remember that per defective spelling we must imply all vowels, except for vowel-only syllables, and that each Hebrew letter [except for a prosthetic Hebrew aleph] stands for a separate syllable.
The $/shin here is the syllable $a.
The Hebrew letter ע is Hebrew ghayin, rendering [as noted above] the Hurrian ghayin-heth, and here is the syllable aġ.
The Hebrew letter י/yod/Y in a Hurrian name renders, as noted above, the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable.
Finally, the resh/R here is the syllable ri.
So שעיר : $ġYR : shin-ghayin-yod-resh [“Seir”] renders the following Hurrian name:
$a-aġ-a-ri
The attested historical spelling of the Hurrian common word for “orchard, garden” is: $a-aġ-ri. Here at Genesis 36: 8, we see a slightly longer spelling of that Hurrian word as a proper name: $a-aġ-a-ri.
Note that as always, the two keys to figuring out non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives are as follows: (1) apply defective spelling only; and (2) realize that in non-initial position, the Hebrew letter ע is a Hebrew ghayin that renders the heth in the applicable foreign language that is closest to Hebrew ghayin -- in Hurrian being the Hurrian ghayin-heth [and in Egyptian being the only Egyptian heth that, like Hebrew ghayin, is a velar fricative].
As always, the underlying meaning of “Seir”/$a-aġ-a-ri turns out to make perfect sense in the historical context of Year 13. When Genesis 36: 8 says that Esau dwelt in the hill country of “Seir”/$a-aġ-a-ri, that means that having crossed the Jordan River into the northern Transjordan, Esau thereafter lived in hill country that was “the good land of Hurrian-dominated Gilead, where there are plenty of trees”, that is, the “orchard”/$a-aġ-a-ri land of Hurrian-dominated Gilead.
If only we could get university scholars to give up on applying plene spelling to non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, we could then demonstrate the great antiquity, and stunning historical accuracy, of the received text of the last 40 chapters of Genesis. There’s nothing wrong with the unpointed received Masoretic text, as is. But in order to give that wondrous text its proper due, we must learn to analyze the non-Hebrew names therein strictly on the basis of defective spelling. [The same goes, in spades, for the Hurrian names of Esau’s two Hurrian wives.]
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
It is my view that Esau’s first two wives are Hurrian women, with Hurrian names. Genesis 26: 34. However, before analyzing the names of Esau’s wives from a linguistic point of view, in this post I would like to set the historical background that applies to Esau’s wives, in the context of analyzing the geographical place name “Seir”.
At the time when Isaac arranged for his favorite [firstborn] son Esau to marry two Hurrian women, Isaac was hoping to thereby connect beloved Esau with the Hurrian princeling power structure in Canaan proper. But alas, the Hurrians’ prominence in Canaan proved to be short-lived, and the fathers of Esau’s two Hurrian wives never ended up becoming princeling rulers in Canaan, as originally hoped. [T-h-a-t is the source of the disappointment of Isaac and Rebekah regarding Esau’s Hurrian wives that is expressed at Genesis 26: 35.] But all was not necessarily lost. Per Esau’s second Hurrian wife, we find out in chapter 36 of Genesis that Esau had powerful Hurrian in-laws in the northern Transjordan [being unexpected Plan B for Esau, in effect]. The prominence of Hurrian princelings in Canaan proper disappeared with great rapidity after Year 13 [with the Hurrians being defeated in Syria in Year 14, per Genesis 14: 5, and pharaoh Akhenaten having already broken off relations with the Hurrian great power state of MDN/MDYN/Midtani in eastern Syria late in Year 12, per the negative reference to XRY/Hurrians at Genesis 40: 16]. But Hurrian princelings by contrast remained a dominant political force in the northern Transjordan for many more generations. Given that historical background, it’s really not so surprising to find Esau leaving Canaan per Genesis 36: 6, and crossing the Jordan River into Gilead in the northern Transjordan in order to join forces with his Hurrian wives’ relatives. Yes, I know that the Biblical text emphasizes that YHWH intended Isaac’s younger twin son, Jacob, to be the son of Isaac who rightfully inherits Canaan proper, which necessitates firstborn son Esau moving out of Canaan. I am just pointing out that the story here also makes complete sense historically, in the context of the world of Year 13.
Genesis 36: 8 says that Esau dwelt in the hill country of “Seir”. “Seir” is a Hurrian name that, as we shall see, effectively means: “the good land of Hurrian-dominated Gilead, where there are plenty of trees”. The western and eastern edges of Gilead are desert. But in Biblical times, central Gilead had a lot of forest, being a veritable “orchard” of trees as it were. That was the good land of Gilead, where crops might be planted, and it was definitely viable for Esau to tend a large flock of sheep and goats there. When Genesis 36: 8 says that Esau dwelt in the hill country of “Seir”, that means that having crossed the Jordan River into the northern Transjordan, Esau thereafter lived in “the good land of Hurrian-dominated Gilead, where there are plenty of trees”.
[Esau’s nickname “Edom”, at Genesis 36: 8b, is a play on words, matching both to the Hebrew common word for “red”, with Esau’s Hurrian-based name I-$i-u meaning “dark red ebony” in Hurrian, and also matching to Udum as a prominent city or site in the northern Transjordan, southeast of the Sea of Galilee, per Amarna Letter EA 256: 24. That clever play on words works in Hebrew because the first letter of the name “Edom”, which is Hebrew aleph, either can function in its own right, hence the Hebrew common word “adam” meaning “red”, or else it can be a prosthetic aleph after which the vowel U is to be implied, in which case it is the geographical place name Udum in the northern Transjordan. I know that “adam” doesn’t look too much like “Udum” in E-n-g-l-i-s-h , but in Hebrew writing they’re essentially identical.]
Linguistic Analysis of “Seir”
The name mis-transliterated by KJV as “Seir” is as follows: שעיר : $ġYR : shin-ghayin-yod-resh.
Since this is a Hurrian name in the Patriarchal narratives, we can be confident that it will have strictly defective spelling. Also, in non-initial position, the Hebrew letter ע in a Hurrian name in the Patriarchal narratives will be a Hebrew ghayin, and will render the Hurrian ghayin-heth. Finally, the Hebrew letter י/yod/Y in a Hurrian name renders the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable.
Remember that per defective spelling we must imply all vowels, except for vowel-only syllables, and that each Hebrew letter [except for a prosthetic Hebrew aleph] stands for a separate syllable.
The $/shin here is the syllable $a.
The Hebrew letter ע is Hebrew ghayin, rendering [as noted above] the Hurrian ghayin-heth, and here is the syllable aġ.
The Hebrew letter י/yod/Y in a Hurrian name renders, as noted above, the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable.
Finally, the resh/R here is the syllable ri.
So שעיר : $ġYR : shin-ghayin-yod-resh [“Seir”] renders the following Hurrian name:
$a-aġ-a-ri
The attested historical spelling of the Hurrian common word for “orchard, garden” is: $a-aġ-ri. Here at Genesis 36: 8, we see a slightly longer spelling of that Hurrian word as a proper name: $a-aġ-a-ri.
Note that as always, the two keys to figuring out non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives are as follows: (1) apply defective spelling only; and (2) realize that in non-initial position, the Hebrew letter ע is a Hebrew ghayin that renders the heth in the applicable foreign language that is closest to Hebrew ghayin -- in Hurrian being the Hurrian ghayin-heth [and in Egyptian being the only Egyptian heth that, like Hebrew ghayin, is a velar fricative].
As always, the underlying meaning of “Seir”/$a-aġ-a-ri turns out to make perfect sense in the historical context of Year 13. When Genesis 36: 8 says that Esau dwelt in the hill country of “Seir”/$a-aġ-a-ri, that means that having crossed the Jordan River into the northern Transjordan, Esau thereafter lived in hill country that was “the good land of Hurrian-dominated Gilead, where there are plenty of trees”, that is, the “orchard”/$a-aġ-a-ri land of Hurrian-dominated Gilead.
If only we could get university scholars to give up on applying plene spelling to non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, we could then demonstrate the great antiquity, and stunning historical accuracy, of the received text of the last 40 chapters of Genesis. There’s nothing wrong with the unpointed received Masoretic text, as is. But in order to give that wondrous text its proper due, we must learn to analyze the non-Hebrew names therein strictly on the basis of defective spelling. [The same goes, in spades, for the Hurrian names of Esau’s two Hurrian wives.]
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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Jim Stinehart
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Re: Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity
Rameses: With an Assist from Isaac Fried
The phrase “the land of Rameses” at Genesis 47: 11, where “Rameses” is spelled רעמסס with רע rendering “Ra”/ra as the first two Hebrew letters, bears all the hallmarks of being a post-exilic addition to the text by an editor who, so unlike the early Hebrew author of the vast bulk of the prose sections of the Patriarchal narratives, viewed Egypt as being “evil”/רע:
“region of Rameses. …It is, however, an anachronism, since the royal name became popular only under the Nineteenth Dynasty (not before the end of the 13th century BCE).” E.A. Speiser, “The Anchor Bible Genesis” (1962), p. 351
“the land of Rameses. Medieval and modern commentators agree that this designation is a synonym for Goshen. The term looks like an anachronism because Rameses is the city later built with Israelite slave labor. Perhaps its use here is intended to foreshadow the future oppression.” Robert Alter, “Genesis: Translation and Commentary” (1996), p. 282
Throughout the Bible, “Rameses” is identified with “Israelite slave labor”, and hence is part and parcel of portraying Egypt (after the end of the Patriarchal Age) as being “evil”.
Now let’s recall Isaac Fried’s fine insight, when he said that the Hebrew spelling of the name of pharaoh Chophra at Jeremiah 44: 30, which features פרעה as “Pharaoh”, whose two middle letters are רע, and חפרע as “Chophra”, whose first two letters are רע, looks “evil”, since the Hebrew common word for “evil” is רע.
So with “Rameses” being identified in the Bible with “Israelite slave labor”, it was deemed fitting by Biblical authors and editors who hated Egypt for failing to protect Judah from eastern oppressors in the 1st millennium BCE to strain to spell the “Ra”/ra element in “Rameses” as רע.
But if we go back to the Late Bronze Age time period of the Patriarchal narratives, the prose sections of which were recorded in cuneiform writing at that time, then based on the cuneiform of the Amarna Letters, “Ra”/ra was likely pronounced ri. As such, (i) the expected Hebrew defective spelling of “Ra”/ra is ר, as we see at the end of the name “Potiphar” : פוטיפר; and (ii) the expected Hebrew plene spelling of “Ra”/ra would be רי. Yet what we see at the beginning of “Rameses” : רעמסס for the “Ra”/ra element in this Egyptian name is neither ר nor רי, but rather is רע, which conveniently (for a 1st millennium BCE author who hated Egypt) is the spelling of the Hebrew common word “evil”. Rather than being the expected Hebrew spelling (whether defective or plene) of “Ra”/ra in the Patriarchal narratives, as the רע at the end of Potipherah” : פוטיפרע has always heretofore been thought to be, such רע Hebrew spelling of “Ra”/ra is a 1st millennium BCE artificial spelling that was specifically designed to brand Egypt as being “evil”/רע.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
The phrase “the land of Rameses” at Genesis 47: 11, where “Rameses” is spelled רעמסס with רע rendering “Ra”/ra as the first two Hebrew letters, bears all the hallmarks of being a post-exilic addition to the text by an editor who, so unlike the early Hebrew author of the vast bulk of the prose sections of the Patriarchal narratives, viewed Egypt as being “evil”/רע:
“region of Rameses. …It is, however, an anachronism, since the royal name became popular only under the Nineteenth Dynasty (not before the end of the 13th century BCE).” E.A. Speiser, “The Anchor Bible Genesis” (1962), p. 351
“the land of Rameses. Medieval and modern commentators agree that this designation is a synonym for Goshen. The term looks like an anachronism because Rameses is the city later built with Israelite slave labor. Perhaps its use here is intended to foreshadow the future oppression.” Robert Alter, “Genesis: Translation and Commentary” (1996), p. 282
Throughout the Bible, “Rameses” is identified with “Israelite slave labor”, and hence is part and parcel of portraying Egypt (after the end of the Patriarchal Age) as being “evil”.
Now let’s recall Isaac Fried’s fine insight, when he said that the Hebrew spelling of the name of pharaoh Chophra at Jeremiah 44: 30, which features פרעה as “Pharaoh”, whose two middle letters are רע, and חפרע as “Chophra”, whose first two letters are רע, looks “evil”, since the Hebrew common word for “evil” is רע.
So with “Rameses” being identified in the Bible with “Israelite slave labor”, it was deemed fitting by Biblical authors and editors who hated Egypt for failing to protect Judah from eastern oppressors in the 1st millennium BCE to strain to spell the “Ra”/ra element in “Rameses” as רע.
But if we go back to the Late Bronze Age time period of the Patriarchal narratives, the prose sections of which were recorded in cuneiform writing at that time, then based on the cuneiform of the Amarna Letters, “Ra”/ra was likely pronounced ri. As such, (i) the expected Hebrew defective spelling of “Ra”/ra is ר, as we see at the end of the name “Potiphar” : פוטיפר; and (ii) the expected Hebrew plene spelling of “Ra”/ra would be רי. Yet what we see at the beginning of “Rameses” : רעמסס for the “Ra”/ra element in this Egyptian name is neither ר nor רי, but rather is רע, which conveniently (for a 1st millennium BCE author who hated Egypt) is the spelling of the Hebrew common word “evil”. Rather than being the expected Hebrew spelling (whether defective or plene) of “Ra”/ra in the Patriarchal narratives, as the רע at the end of Potipherah” : פוטיפרע has always heretofore been thought to be, such רע Hebrew spelling of “Ra”/ra is a 1st millennium BCE artificial spelling that was specifically designed to brand Egypt as being “evil”/רע.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois