Are these mountains?

[kwrandolph]

B-Hebrew Haburim:

When looking up הרר it doesn’t seem to mean “mountain”, yet that’s what the dictionaries claim. Are the dictionaries accurate?

It is found a few times as a personal name. Remove them from the list, and we’re left with 13 verses: Genesis 14:6, Numbers 23:7, Deuteronomy 8:9, 33:15, Jeremiah 17:3, Habakkuk 3:6, Psalm 30:8 (7), 36:7 (6), 50:10, 76:5 (4), 87:1, 133:3, Song of Song 4:8.

The claim that it means “mountains” comes from its form and that it’s used in the same context as “hill” in Deuteronomy 33:15, Habakkuk 3:6, Psalm 133:3. But only three out of thirteen, and even in those it can mean other than “mountain”. Thus I find the argument that it means “mountain” weak at best.

Its other uses seem more in line with places of dwelling or something similar. For example, Song of Songs 4:8 it’s used in parallel with “haunt” as in place where one lives and goes about. Numbers 23:7 could be translated as “from my place in the east”. In others, the context is so vague that the word could have one of several other meanings and still fit the context.

So what do you all think? Is this just a defective mountain, or are we dealing with a different lexeme?

Karl W. Randolph.

[S_Walch]

Hi Karl,

Checking those 13 verses in the LXX, in Gen 14:6, Num 23:7, Deut 8:9, 33:15; Hab 3:6; Ps 36:7; 50:10; 76:5; 87:1; 133:3; Song 4:8, it translates הרר as the plural of ορος/mountain.

The LXX doesn't contain Jer 17:1-4; and in Psalm 30:7 (LXX 29:8), the LXX appears to have read הדר instead of הרר as it's translated as κάλλει (καλλος/beauty/glory).

This has perhaps coloured the dictionaries claim that הרר means "mountains".

[Isaac Fried]

הרר is possibly a contraction of הר-הר 'a chain of mountains', as in Nu 23:7
מן ארם ינחני בלק מלך מואב מהררי קדם
KJV: "Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east"

In the name הררי HARARIY the ending -IY is the personal pronoun היא 'he', for the person, identified as היא he who is from the mountains.

הרהר HARHAR is also 'contemplate, ponder, meditate, fantasize, indulge in reveries, be lost in musings, stir of the imagination, impregnate the mind', as in Dan. 4:2(5)
חלם חזית וידחלינני והרהורין על משכבי וחזווי רישי יבהלונני
KJV: "I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me"

It is a variant of ברבר, גרגר, דרדר, הרהר, זרזר, חרחר, כרכר, מרמר, ערער, פרפר, צרצר, קרקר, שרשר

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Jim Stinehart]

As support for the traditional meaning of HRR : הרר, consider the following key phrase at Genesis 14: 6:

BHRRM $ġYR : שעיר
בהררם

The form is plural. The meaning of BHRRM here is: “in hill country”, that is, “in” the “hills”/“mountains” in the plural.

Scholars have misunderstood the name mis-translated as “Seir”, because it is a Hurrian name. $gYR [“Seir”], being a non-west Semitic word, uses the Hebrew letter ע to render a foreign ghayin. Defective spelling always is used for non-west Semitic names in the Patriarchal narratives. Though unfortunately overlooked by both Hebrew and Hurrian scholars, the Hebrew letter yod/Y is consistently used in Hurrian Biblical names to render the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable [a vowel-only syllable].

Thus as I noted in an earlier post: (1) the $/shin here is the syllable $a; (2) the Hebrew letter ע is Hebrew ghayin, rendering [as noted above] the Hurrian ghayin-heth, and here is the syllable aġ; (3) the Hebrew letter י/yod/Y in a Hurrian name renders, as noted above, the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable; and finally, (4) 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 we see a slightly longer spelling of that Hurrian word as a proper name: $a-aġ-a-ri.

As always, the underlying meaning of “Seir”/$a-aġ-a-ri turns out to make perfect sense in the historical context of Year 13 [in late Amarna]. Genesis 14: 6 is historically accurate in noting that in Year 13, the hill country of the northern Transjordan was dominated by Hurrian [XRY : "Horites"] princelings. Similarly, when Genesis 36: 8 says that Esau dwelt “in the hill country” : BHRRM of “Seir”/$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 “hill country”/HRRM land of Hurrian-dominated Gilead.

The p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives in the context of Year 13 is truly breathtaking.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[kwrandolph]

This has perhaps coloured the dictionaries claim that הרר means "mountains".

Of course it has.

In these discussions I’ve found other words where it is apparent that the translators of the LXX had no idea what they meant, therefore were just guessing. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just guessing here too. I’m not an LXX scholar, so I didn’t record those findings into a list.

Thanks.

Karl W. Randolph.

[S_Walch]

In these discussions I’ve found other words where it is apparent that the translators of the LXX had no idea what they meant, therefore were just guessing.

Whilst I won't argue against this for certain words, is it right to believe the LXX translators were just guessing in this case?

We've got 6 different books (Gen, Num, Deut, Hab, Psalms, SoS), and there's no evidence to suggest that the Psalms were just translated by one person. So we've got a possible total of 11 different translators (minimum of 4 I would say, if we assume that Gen-Deut were translated by the same person as well as all the Psalms) whom, upon coming across הרר, have all chosen to translate it as the Greek ορος with no variation bar in one verse, for which there is a viable explanation as to why they have a different word.

I'm no mathematical probabilities expert, but what's the likely-hood of 4-11 different people all choosing the same word to translate הרר as (not to mention that there could be quite a few decades between the translation of the books - the LXX wasn't all done at once), if they didn't know what it meant and were just guessing? I would expect we'd see a bit more variation in the translation, rather than the consistency that we have.

This is why I believe that the LXX should be given a bit more weight when it comes to helping determine the meaning of Hebrew words that we're not quite sure of. If the LXX translators show a variation in translation for a Hebrew word then yes, it would be right to presume that they were just guessing. But consistent translation of Hebrew-Greek? I think that would be safe to suppose that they knew what the word meant.

Edit:

To throw a few spanners into the works, I thought it might be nice to check those 13 verses in the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Genesis 14:6 - Not extant among the DSS.
Numbers 23:7 - Not extant among the DSS.
Deuteronomy 33:15 - 1Q Deut b omits v15 entirely, going from v14 to v16. 4Q Deut h reads the same as the Masoretic.
Jeremiah 17:3 - Not extant among the DSS.
Habakkuk 3:6 - Wadi Murabba'at (MurXII) reads the same as the Masoretic.
Psalm 30:8 (7) - Verse Not extant in DSS
Psalm 36:7 (6) - Verse Not extant in DSS
Psalm 50:10 - Verse Not extant in DSS
Psalm 76:5 (4) - Verse Not extant in DSS
Psalm 87:1 - Not in DSS
Psalm 133:3 - 11Q Psa a has הר
Song of Song 4:8 - 4Q Cant b reads the same as the Masoretic.

The most interesting however is Deuteronomy 8:9, where the four manuscripts that have this verse extant in them (4Q Deut f, 4Q Deut j, 4Q Deut n, & 5Q Deut) all read הריה, and not הרריה.

[kwrandolph]

Dear Ste:

Whilst I won't argue against this for certain words, is it right to believe the LXX translators were just guessing in this case?

Look below at the evidence from the DSS. Of the 13 times it appears in the Masoretic, only five times is found in the DSS. Of those five times, two definitely are different. So what you have done is to add an extra option, namely that the translators of the LXX had MSS that were different from the Masoretic. How many of the eight verses not extent in the DSS had הר instead of הרר?

We've got 6 different books (Gen, Num, Deut, Hab, Psalms, SoS), and there's no evidence to suggest that the Psalms were just translated by one person. So we've got a possible total of 11 different translators (minimum of 4 I would say, if we assume that Gen-Deut were translated by the same person as well as all the Psalms) whom, upon coming across הרר, have all chosen to translate it as the Greek ορος with no variation bar in one verse, for which there is a viable explanation as to why they have a different word.

I'm no mathematical probabilities expert, but what's the likely-hood of 4-11 different people all choosing the same word to translate הרר as (not to mention that there could be quite a few decades between the translation of the books - the LXX wasn't all done at once), if they didn't know what it meant and were just guessing? I would expect we'd see a bit more variation in the translation, rather than the consistency that we have.

This is why I believe that the LXX should be given a bit more weight when it comes to helping determine the meaning of Hebrew words that we're not quite sure of. If the LXX translators show a variation in translation for a Hebrew word then yes, it would be right to presume that they were just guessing. But consistent translation of Hebrew-Greek? I think that would be safe to suppose that they knew what the word meant.

Edit:

To throw a few spanners into the works, I thought it might be nice to check those 13 verses in the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Genesis 14:6 - Not extant among the DSS.
Numbers 23:7 - Not extant among the DSS.
Deuteronomy 33:15 - 1Q Deut b omits v15 entirely, going from v14 to v16. 4Q Deut h reads the same as the Masoretic.
Jeremiah 17:3 - Not extant among the DSS.
Habakkuk 3:6 - Wadi Murabba'at (MurXII) reads the same as the Masoretic.
Psalm 30:8 (7) - Verse Not extant in DSS
Psalm 36:7 (6) - Verse Not extant in DSS
Psalm 50:10 - Verse Not extant in DSS
Psalm 76:5 (4) - Verse Not extant in DSS
Psalm 87:1 - Not in DSS
Psalm 133:3 - 11Q Psa a has הר
Song of Song 4:8 - 4Q Cant b reads the same as the Masoretic.

The most interesting however is Deuteronomy 8:9, where the four manuscripts that have this verse extant in them (4Q Deut f, 4Q Deut j, 4Q Deut n, & 5Q Deut) all read הריה, and not הרריה.

The Biblical Hebrew word for “mountain” is הר which, during Biblical times probably had two syllables, making a pronunciation very similar to the Greek ορος. It appears roughly 300 times in Tanakh.

The evidence you’ve presented says that roughly half of the occurrences of הרר may have been typos for “mountain” but we can’t tell for certain which ones they were. And of the remaining examples, just as multiple modern translators into English have assumed that it was either poetic or typo variant on “mountain”, so too could the LXX translators have done the same.

What raised a red flag for me is in Psalm 76:5 (4) is that its use in its context appears to be the participle of an action, not a description of a place.

One option is that הרר may have been the etymological root for הר, which may have been known.

Isn’t lexicography of Biblical Hebrew fun?

Karl W. Randolph.

[S_Walch]

Look below at the evidence from the DSS. Of the 13 times it appears in the Masoretic, only five times is found in the DSS. Of those five times, two definitely are different. So what you have done is to add an extra option, namely that the translators of the LXX had MSS that were different from the Masoretic.

Good point. The LXX translation itself, plus the evidence of the DSS, does indeed show that the LXX translators must've had manuscripts that were different to those handed down by the Masoretes.

I guess other things that could be checked is to see in the DSS how many times הר actually appears as הרר; how many times the LXX has the plural for ορος where the Masoretic has singular, and singular ορος compared to plural; see in the DSS if there are any other instances of הרר or הר which are neither in the LXX or the Masoretic; then see if the LXX's plural or singular usages of ορος line up with the DSS.

...for 300 verses, that's going to take me a while to check

The evidence you’ve presented says that roughly half of the occurrences of הרר may have been typos for “mountain” but we can’t tell for certain which ones they were. And of the remaining examples, just as multiple modern translators into English have assumed that it was either poetic or typo variant on “mountain”, so too could the LXX translators have done the same.

The only way to confirm either way would be to study how the LXX translates other obscure Hebrew words, to see whether they're consistent or variant in their translation choices.

Hopefully someone else can chip in with some sort of study on that.

What raised a red flag for me is in Psalm 76:5 (4) is that its use in its context appears to be the participle of an action, not a description of a place.

The LXX (sorry to bring it up again) has the following for Psalm 76:5 (75:5 LXX):

φωτίζεις σὺ θαυμαστῶς ἀπὸ ὀρέων αἰωνίων.
You shine wonderfully from eternal mountains.

Once more, this throws in our options:

LXX had a different Hebrew text compared to Masoretic.
LXX translators were guessing the meaning of טרף.

Again, a study of how the LXX has handled other places like this would be useful. (K. Penner? Any help on this? )

Isn’t lexicography of Biblical Hebrew fun?

It certainly is, Karl.

It certainly is

[Ken M. Penner]

Once more, this throws in our options:

LXX had a different Hebrew text compared to Masoretic.
LXX translators were guessing the meaning of טרף.

Again, a study of how the LXX has handled other places like this would be useful. (K. Penner? Any help on this? )

One might start with
Barr, James. “‘Guessing’ in the Septuagint.” Studien Zur Septuaginta-Robert Hanhart Zu Ehren. Ed. Detlef Fraenkel, Udo Quast, and John W. Wevers. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990. 19–34. Print.
https://www.zotero.org/groups/septuagin ... y/FBHN9TSN

[S_Walch]

One might start with
Barr, James. “‘Guessing’ in the Septuagint.” Studien Zur Septuaginta-Robert Hanhart Zu Ehren. Ed. Detlef Fraenkel, Udo Quast, and John W. Wevers. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990. 19–34. Print.
https://www.zotero.org/groups/septuagin ... y/FBHN9TSN

Cheers, Ken.

(I'm not gong to have to brush up on my German, am I?)