Joshua 11: 16-17: Linguistics and Geography

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Jim Stinehart
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Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am

Joshua 11: 16-17: Linguistics and Geography

Post by Jim Stinehart »

Joshua 11: 16-17: Linguistics and Geography

Here is the Revised Standard Version of Joshua 11: 16-17 (which I have divided into sub-verses for ease of discussion):

Joshua 11: 16a: “So Joshua took all that land, the hill country and all the Negeb and all the land of Goshen and the lowland”

Joshua 11: 16b: “and the Arabah and the hill country of Israel and its lowland”

Joshua 11: 17a: “from Mount Halak, that rises toward Se′ir,”

Joshua 11: 17b: “as far as Ba′al-gad in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon.”

Joshua 11: 17c: “And he took all their kings, and smote them, and put them to death.”

All agree that Joshua 11: 16a references Joshua’s conquests in the south. Such southern conquests were described in some detail in the preceding
chapter -- chapter 10 of Joshua.

The majority view of university scholars is that Joshua 11: 16b likewise references Joshua’s conquests in the south. But that flies in the face of what Joshua 11: 16b says, in addition to being illogical. The phrase “the hill country of Israel” at Joshua 11: 16b certainly must be referring to north-central Canaan, not southernmost Canaan. In that connection, note that Joshua 11: 21 distinguishes the hill country of Israel (in the north) from the hill country of Judah (in the south). The reference to “the Arabah” at Joshua 11: 16b in context refers to northern Canaan, as Joshua 11: 2 explicitly refers to “the Arabah south of Chinneroth”, that is, the Jordan River Valley just south of the Sea of Galilee. Moreover, it is eminently logical for Joshua 11: 16a to refer to Joshua’s conquests in the south, and then Joshua 11: 16b refers to Joshua’s conquests in northern Canaan. After all, most of Joshua 11: 1-15 (which immediately precedes Joshua 11: 16-17) gives us details about Joshua’s conquests in northern Canaan. Thus Joshua 11: 1-9 references Achshaph, “the northern hill country”, Naphoth-dor, and the waters of Merom, and Joshua 11: 10-15 focuses great attention on Hazor in eastern Galilee.

Despite what would seem to be overwhelming evidence that Joshua 11: 16b is referencing Joshua’s conquests in northern Canaan, most scholars claim that Joshua 11: 16b is allegedly referring to Joshua’s conquests in the south:

“Joshua 11: 16 concludes the entire conquest story in Joshua, and it serves as a parallel to 10: 40, which speaks more narrowly of land conquered in the south.” Jerome F.D. Creach, “Joshua” (2003), p. 95.

But the conquests in the south that are referenced at Joshua 10: 40 are fully covered by Joshua 11: 16a, whereas Joshua 11: 16b, by contrast, then goes on to reference the conquests that have just been descried in the preceding 15 verses of chapter 11 of Joshua: northern Canaan.

All university scholars claim that Joshua 11: 17a refers to Joshua’s conquests in the south, even though such view does not make good sense. On the majority view, Joshua 11: 16a, 16b and 17a all are talking exclusively about Joshua’s conquests in the south, and nothing at Joshua 11: 16-17 refers to Joshua’s conquests in northern Canaan or in the northern Transjordan. That makes no sense, since Joshua 11: 1-15 chronicles Joshua’s conquests in northern Canaan, which then need to be referenced (briefly) at Joshua 11: 16-17. Likewise, parts of chapters 9, 12 and 13 of Joshua give a detailed account of Joshua’s conquests of the northern Transjordan (especially King Og of Bashan), so Joshua 11: 16-17 logically needs a brief reference to Joshua’s conquests of Gilead and Bashan (the northern Transjordan).

The minority view of scholars does not work well either: Joshua 11: 16a references Joshua’s conquests in the south, Joshua 11: 16b references Joshua’s conquests in northern Canaan, and then Joshua 11: 17 inexplicably goes back to referencing Joshua’s conquests in the south again, with there never being any reference to Joshua’s conquests of the northern Transjordan. Note that neither of these two alternative scholarly views makes sense. No, logically Joshua 11: 17a must be referring to Joshua’s conquests of Gilead and Bashan.

All agree that Joshua 11: 17b obviously is referring to Joshua’s northernmost conquests.

From the standpoint of a logical approach to geography, Joshua 11: 17a virtually has to be referring to the northern Transjordan. In a subsequent post, we will see that (a) “Mount Halak” is mis-transliterated, and per a new linguistic analysis, such name actually refers to the hill country of the northern Transjordan, and (b) “Seir” has the same meaning as such word has in the Patriarchal narratives in Genesis and in the Amarna Letters, referencing part or all of the northern Transjordan, rather than having the traditional meaning, per chapter 2 of Deuteronomy, of land south of the Dead Sea.

As we are starting to see, the references to “Seir” in Joshua, like the references to “Seir” in the Patriarchal narratives and the Amarna Letters, have nothing to do with the references to “Seir” in chapter 2 of Deuteronomy. What is needed is for the university community to be willing, for the first time, to look at Joshua and Genesis on their own geographical merits, rather than continuing to be blinded by what is said as to geography in the late 8th century BCE chapter 2 of Deuteronomy.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
Jim Stinehart
Posts: 352
Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am

Re: Joshua 11: 16-17: Linguistics and Geography

Post by Jim Stinehart »

In my prior post, I pointed out that Joshua 11: 16-17 makes geographical and logical sense if and only if Joshua 11: 17a is referencing the northern Transjordan (where, for example, Joshua had defeated King Og in Bashan). Here is the New Revised Standard Version translation of Joshua 11: 17a:
“from Mount Halak, that rises toward Se′ir”

1. “Seir”

In my previous thread, I explained that in the Amarna Letters and in the Patriarchal narratives in Genesis, “Seir” is a Hurrian name that either references northwest Gilead in particular, or the northern Transjordan in general. That works perfectly here for Joshua 11: 17a. (Thus “Seir” in Joshua, Genesis and the Amarna Letters has nothing whatsoever to do with the locale south of the Dead Sea that is referenced as “Seir” in chapter 2 of Deuteronomy.)

I also noted in my prior thread that “Seir” is the expected Hebrew spelling of the Hurrian name for one of Teshup’s two divine bulls, with the other Hurrian divine bull being Ḫurri. These Hurrian names for the northern Transjordan reflect the historical fact that in the Late Bronze Age, the northern Transjordan had at times been dominated by Hurrian princelings. For example, the following four Hurrian princelings in the Amarna Letters operated in the northern Transjordan (Gilead or Bashan): (i) Tadua (a witness for the ruler of Pella in northwest Gilead); (ii) Artamanya (of Ṣiribašani, in Bashan); (iii) Biridašwa of Ashteroth (Bashan); (iv) Biryawaza (Bashan).

Accordingly, we should logically ask the following question. Is “Mount Halak”, like “Seir”, a Hurrian-based name for the northern Transjordan?

2. “Mount Halak”

Scholars translate חר as “Mount”, but an alternative translation is “hill country of”, and as we shall see, that is the better translation here. I myself see חלך as being a Hurrian name, like “Seir”. But needless to say, university scholars have rarely seen a non-Semitic name in the Bible to which they are unwilling to give an incongruous west Semitic/Hebrew meaning. Here, university scholars see חלך as being the Hebrew word for “smooth”, and claim that it references an otherwise unattested “Bald Mountain” south of the Dead Sea:

“The location of Bald Mountain (Mount Halak) is unclear (see ABD 3: 25—26), but the text here [at Joshua 11: 17] states that it is close to Seir, which is of course in the south (cf. 12:7).” Pekka Pitkänen, “Joshua” (2010), p. 234.

As to the geographical location of “Mount Halak”, that is assumed by university scholars to be south of the Dead Sea. See for example the map at p. 122 of Anson F. Rainey, “The Sacred Bridge” (2006).

But no “Mount Halak” is known outside of the Bible. None of the many maps in Adrian Curtis, “Oxford Bible Atlas”, Fourth Edition (2007) shows a “Mount Halak”. The name חלך only appears at Joshua 11: 17 and in the parallel passage at Joshua 12: 7. There simply is no known “Bald Mountain” south of the Dead Sea.

Since Joshua 11: 17 only makes geographical and logical sense if it is referencing the northern Transjordan (not an unknown “Bald Mountain” south of the Dead Sea), and since חלך is paired there with “Seir”, which is a Hurrian name for the northern Transjordan (in the Amarna Letters and the Patriarchal narratives), shouldn’t we at least ask what no university scholar has ever asked? Is the phrase at Joshua 11: 17 that is mis-transliterated as “Mount Halak” in fact a Hurrian-based reference to the hill country of the northern Transjordan? Indeed, we might even ask if this name is a play on the name of Teshup’s other divine bull, Ḫurri.

The Hurrian name “Ḫulukka” is attested 26 times as a Hurrian personal name at the Hurrian province of Nuzi. Gelb and Purves, “Nuzi Personal Names”, p. 62. The expected Hebrew rendering (using defective spelling, of course) of the Hurrian name “Ḫulukka” is exactly what we see at Joshua 11: 17: חלך.

Hurrian scholars (Nozadze, and Gelb and Purves) agree that “Ḫulukka” is a Hurrian-based Hurrian name, but they also note that the Hurrian root of this Hurrian name, “Ḫulu”, is not a Hurrian common word. The most likely explanation, given the popularity of this Hurrian name and the ability of the liquids R and L to interchange in the spelling of Hurrian names, is that “Ḫulu” is an alternative spelling of “Ḫurri”, the name of one of Teshup’s two divine bulls. As such, “Ḫulu” effectively means: “Hurrian”. As noted above, at times in the Late Bronze Age the northern Transjordan had been dominated by Hurrian princelings, and “Seir”, as the Hurrian name of one of Teshup’s two divine bulls, references the northern Transjordan.
Thus the phrase mis-transliterated as “Mount Halak” should rather be translated as: “the Hurrian hill country [of the northern Transjordan]”.

Now everything makes sense -- linguistically, geographically, and logically. Linguistically, חלך is the Hurrian name “Ḫulukka”, effectively meaning (in Hurrian): “Hurrian”. Geographically, “Mount Halak” : “the Hurrian hill country [of the northern Transjordan]” refers to the hill country of the northern Transjordan, that is, Gilead and Bashan. Logically, Joshua 11: 16-17 references (albeit briefly) all of Joshua’s many conquests: 11: 16a is the south, 11: 16b is northern Canaan, 11: 17a is the northern Transjordan, and 11: 17b is the northernmost point.

If (and only if) we are willing to ask if חלך is a Hurrian name for the northern Transjordan, then all aspects of Joshua 11: 16-17 make perfect sense on all levels.

My broader point is as follows: in (i) the Amarna Letters and (ii) the Patriarchal narratives in Genesis and (iii) Joshua, “Seir” does not have the meaning of land south of the Dead Sea per chapter 2 of Deuteronomy, but rather is a Hurrian-based reference to the northern Transjordan.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
Jim Stinehart
Posts: 352
Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am

Re: Joshua 11: 16-17: Linguistics and Geography

Post by Jim Stinehart »

We have now seen that (i) the name “Seir” : שעיר is a Hurrian name, Še-e-ir-ri, that references the northern Transjordan in the Amarna Letters, in the Patriarchal narratives in Genesis, and in Joshua; and that (ii) the name “Halak” : חלך is the Hurrian name Ḫulukka, which is used in Joshua to reference the northern Transjordan. If those analyses are right, then we would suspect that King “Og” of Bashan (in the northernmost Transjordan) may likely be a Hurrian name. Moreover, Joshua 12: 4 says (per NRSV): “King Og of Bashan, one of the last of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth” [in Bashan in the northern Transjordan]. The non-mystical meaning of “Rephaim” at Ugarit is “elite Hurrian charioteers”, essentially being a west Semitic synonym for maryannu. So “Og” :עוג should be a Hurrian name. (Note that the Hebrew common word עוג at Ezekiel 4: 12 doesn’t make sense as a kingly name: “to bake a cake”.)

The Hebrew letter ayin at the beginning of this Hurrian name is the expected rendering of the Hurrian true vowel E as a separate syllable. The next Hebrew letter, vav, renders a syllable beginning with the consonant W, which here is -wa-. The final Hebrew letter, gimel, renders the syllable -ge, which is a Hurrian divine suffix. This Hurrian name is thus: E-wa -ge.

But there is no Hurrian common word ewa. Rather, e-wa is a Hittite word for a special, sacred kind of barley. ewa-barley played a very important role in Hittite rituals and mythology, and was sometimes associated in particular with the Queen of the Hittites. I see e-wa as being a Hittite loanword that is used in Hurrian proper names (though it is not a Hurrian common word).

As support for this view, for the name E-wa-ḫi-na, featuring the same root ewa, Gelb and Purves in “Nuzi Personal Names” note at p. 211 that this is probably an “Anatolian” name, since the element ḫi-na is Anatolian. The Hittites dominated Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age heyday of the Hurrians. Note also the Hurrian name Ewa-zi at Nuzi, featuring the same Hittite loanword as the root of this Hurrian name, in this case featuring a classic Hurrian suffix. (At p. 211, Gelb and Purves see Ewazi as being a Hurrian name [not a Hittite name], and compare its root to two Hurrian names that begin with Ewi-.)

The linguistic fit is perfect.

In the ancient world most noblemen’s names had a divine reference. Here the divine reference in the Hurrian name “Og” : עוג : E-wa-ge is to ewa, a Hittite loanword into Hurrian for a sacred form of barley used by pagans in cultic rituals. [There is no rational reason to expect “Og” : עוג : E-wa-ge to be a Hebrew name (or a west Semitic name), and it isn’t.]

The Biblical names “Seir” and “Halak” and “Og” in Joshua make no sense in west Semitic/Hebrew, but rather all are Hurrian names: שעיר : Še-e-ir-ri; and חלך : Ḫulukka; and עוג : Ewa-ge. Going beyond linguistics to geography, note in particular that in each of Joshua, the Patriarchal narratives, and the Amarna Letters, שעיר : Še-e-ir-ri is a Hurrian-based name for the Hurrian-dominated northern Transjordan, being a completely different locale than the “Seir” south of the Dead Sea that is referenced in chapter 2 of Deuteronomy.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
Jim Stinehart
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Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am

Re: Joshua 11: 16-17: Linguistics and Geography

Post by Jim Stinehart »

In addition to the parallel references to “Seir” at Joshua 11: 17 and 12: 7, the other reference to “Seir” in Joshua is at Joshua 15: 10, which KJV translates as follows:

“And the border [of Judah’s tribal allotment] compassed from Baalah westward unto mount Seir, and passed along unto the side of mount Jearim, which is Chesalon, on the north side, and went down to Bethshemesh, and passed on to Timnah:”

Before we get into a detailed analysis of what “Seir” means in Joshua 15: 10 (which is a difficult verse to understand, as to both “Baalah” and “Seir”), it should be noted that the one and only thing that is clear as to “Seir” at Joshua 15: 10 is that “Seir” is a component of the northern boundary of Judah’s tribal allotment:

“[As to the reference to Seir in] Am. Tab. [Amarna Letter EA] 288: 26…, this seems more likely to refer to a more northerly location (see 2 below…)…. 2. A location on the northern border of Judah (Josh. 15: 10).” B. MacDonald, W.S. Lasor, “Seir”, in “The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia”, Volume Four: Q-Z, general editor, Geoffrey Bromiley, first published 1915, fully revised (1988), p. 383.

In Hebrew, “mount Seir” and “the hill country of Seir” are written the same way, so out of context, we do not know at first glance whether Joshua 15: 10 is referring to the hill country of Seir (my view), or to one particular mountain named Seir (the traditional view). But even more confusingly here, there are two very different places along the northern border of Judah’s tribal allotment that have the same name -- “Baalah”. The first such place is just west of Jerusalem, and is referred to at Joshua 15: 9 as “Baalah, which is Kirjathjearim”. The second such place is a mountain near the Mediterranean Sea (with there likely being a town having the same basic name at the foot of such mountain), which is referred to at Joshua 15: 11 in the following context: “And the border went out unto the side of Ekron northward: and the border was drawn to Shicron, and passed along to mount Baalah, and went out unto Jabneel; and the goings out of the border were at the sea.”

The northwest corner of the tribal allotment of Judah is at the Mediterranean Sea near Mt. Baalah/Baalah, per Joshua 15: 11 above. The northeast corner of the tribal allotment of Judah is at the southwest corner of Gilead, as can be deduced from Joshua 15: 5: “And the east border was the salt sea, even unto the end of Jordan. And their border in the north quarter was from the bay of the sea at the uttermost part of Jordan”. That is to say, the southernmost end of the Jordan River, at the northern edge of the Dead Sea, is both (i) the northeast corner of Judah’s tribal allotment, per Joshua 15: 5, and (ii) the southwest corner of Gilead (the southwest corner of the northern Transjordan), because the land northeast from there is Gilead in the northern Transjordan.

Accordingly, the northern border of Judah’s tribal allotment can be said to extend from the southwest corner of Gilead on the east, almost straight west to the Mediterranean Sea near Mt. Baalah on the west. Although I say “straight west”, that is a slight exaggeration, because in fact Joshua 15: 5-11 goes to great pains to describe precisely where that northerly border is, in particular stating that it is just south of Jerusalem (so that Jerusalem itself notably was not included in Judah’s tribal allotment, per Joshua 15: 8), whereas it is just north of Chesalon (so that Chesalon, by contrast, was included in Judah’s tribal allotment, per Joshua 15: 10).

So far, so good. But now comes the controversial part concerning how Joshua 15: 10 should be interpreted.

The standard interpretation of Joshua 15: 10 is quite strange. The “Baalah” at Joshua 15: 10 is viewed as being the Baalah just west of Jerusalem (that is, the Baalah referenced at Joshua 15: 9, rather than the Baalah referenced at Joshua 15: 11). With Chesalon being a mere 3 miles southwest of that Baalah, “mount Seir” is then shoehorned in between that Baalah and Chesalon. Yet no other Biblical passage references a Seir in that locale, and there is no non-biblical support for a Seir in that locale either. And why would three separate places within 3 miles of each other be referenced at Joshua 15: 10a? Moreover, it quickly turns out that this is not even the northwest corner of Judah’s tribal allotment, because Joshua 15: 11 (quoted above) immediately clarifies that Judah’s northwest corner in fact extended all the way west to the Mediterranean Sea, near Mt. Baalah.

I suggest the following re-interpretation of Joshua 15: 10. In my opinion, a later editor misinterpreted the “Baalah” at Joshua 15: 10 as referencing Kirjathjearim just west of Jerusalem, whereas in fact Mt. Baalah (or the town at its foot named “Baalah”), near the Mediterranean Sea, was the intended reference. On the basis of that later editor misunderstanding the intended reference of the name “Baalah”, in order to make the sentence make sense, that later editor then switched the words “unto” and “from”, mistakenly thinking he was correcting an earlier scribal error. To undo that scribal error by a later editor, we now need simply to switch the words “unto” and “from” in the received text. That emendation results in Joshua 15: 10 now making sense as being a brief summary of the entire extent of the northerly border of Judah’s tribal allotment, as follows (where I have added my own explanatory comments in brackets):

[Proposed emended Joshua 15: 10:] “[a] And the border [of Judah’s tribal allotment] compassed to [Mt.] Baalah [near the Mediterranean Sea] westward from the hill country of Seir [being the southwest corner of Gilead in the northern Transjordan], and passed along unto the side of mount Jearim, which is Chesalon, on the north side, and went down to Bethshemesh, and passed on to Timnah:”

Based on that proposed emendation of Joshua 15: 10, which is limited to switching the words “unto” and “from” (as seeming to be an understandable scribal error by a later editor), the emended Joshua 15: 10 now makes complete sense on all levels. Joshua 15: 10a is a mini-summary description of the entirety of the northern border of Judah’s tribal allotment [from Seir/Gilead on the northeast, to the Mediterranean Sea at Baalah on the northwest]. Then Joshua 15: 10b goes right back to stating with specificity exactly what was included and what was excluded by such northern border, in particular clarifying here that Chesalon was included within Judah’s tribal allotment.

The big advantage of such emendation is, of course, that the reference to “Seir”, instead of being inexplicable on the traditional view, now makes perfect sense, as referencing the northeast corner of Judah’s tribal allotment -- being the southwest corner of the hill country of Seir/Gilead, in the northern Transjordan.

It is my opinion that in Joshua, in the Patriarchal narratives in Genesis, in Late Bronze Age Egyptian inscriptions, and in the Amarna Letters, “Seir” is a Hurrian name that consistently refers to the northern Transjordan or some part thereof (northwest Gilead, in the Patriarchal narratives), which was dominated by Hurrian princelings in the mid-14th century BCE Amarna Age (in the Late Bronze Age). As such, “Seir” in the Patriarchal narratives references a completely different geographical locale than in chapter 2 of Deuteronomy, where Seir (non-historically) indicates land south of the Dead Sea.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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