B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Kiriath Arba on Egyptian Execration List

1. Biblical Testimony (Excluding Genesis)

Joshua makes the following emphatic statement at Joshua 14: 15: “And the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba”. On four subsequent occasions, Joshua makes statements that strongly imply the same thing (Joshua 15: 13, 54; 20: 7; 21: 11).

Judges 1:10 also makes the same emphatic statement: “…now the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba”.

Thus the Biblical testimony is clear: the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country (which Biblically was King David’s first capital city) (i) was called Kiriath Arba prior to the Conquest, and (ii) was called “Hebron” after the Conquest.

As we will see on this thread, it turns out that verifying the historical accuracy of the foregoing statements in Joshua and Judges relies primarily on matters of west Semitic linguistics, involving both Hebrew and Canaanite, which makes this a fitting subject for the b-hebrew list.

(Incidentally, though this will not be a focus of this post, none of the above Biblical statements asserts, or necessarily implies, that King David’s first capital city of “Hebron” was one and the same place as, or located anywhere in the general vicinity of, the Patriarchs’ “Hebron”. Although one might be tempted to interject that “Gosh, they shared the same name!”, that is not in fact necessarily the case. The above Biblical testimony seems to state unequivocally that in the Patriarchal Age (which of course pre-dates the Conquest by centuries), the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country (which would, many centuries later, become King David’s first capital city) was n-o-t called “Hebron”! Moreover, even in the days of Moses (who also pre-dates the Conquest, with Moses sometimes being thought to be the author of the Patriarchal narratives, so that nomenclature in the Patriarchal narratives might therefore at times logically reflect geographical place names in use in Moses’ time, even if such geographical place names had not yet come into existence in the Patriarchal Age), that high altitude city south of Jerusalem in southern hill country still was not yet called “Hebron”. But I’m starting to get off topic, because believe it or not, I do not mean to discuss the Patriarchal narratives in this particular post.)

To repeat then, based exclusively on Biblical testimony outside of Genesis, the Books of Joshua and Judges are telling us that the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country (which Biblically was King David’s first capital city) (i) was called Kiriath Arba prior to the Conquest, and (ii) was called “Hebron” after the Conquest.

2. Non-Biblical Facts

Temporarily ignoring all Biblical testimony for a moment, here is what we know about this city and its names, based exclusively on non-biblical evidence:

(a) The name of such city prior to the 1st millennium BCE is unknown.

(b) Based on (d) below, it is a virtual certainty that the Early Bronze Age name of such city surely must appear on the older Egyptian Execration List (which dates to the end of the Early Bronze Age and will be discussed in some detail on this thread, though not in this first post), yet no one has been able to determine which of the 36 city names on that older Execration List may be the Early Bronze Age name of such city. (But we on the b-hebrew list will do that in my very next two posts on this thread. Yes!)

(c) From the 1st millennium BCE to the present, such city has been called “Hebron”.

(d) In the Early Bronze Age, such city was one of the most imposing fortifications on planet Earth (though it did not necessarily boast a particularly large population). Accordingly, from an Egyptian perspective, it would certainly deserve a place on the older Egyptian Execration List (which dates to the end of the Early Bronze Age). Indeed, of all the cities in Early Bronze Age Canaan, the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country would seem to be the strongest candidate for inclusion on the older Execration List. It’s simply got to be there! (Remember, here we are temporarily ignoring for all purposes all Biblical testimony. I am not presenting a faith-based position in my attempt to prove that Joshua and Judges are right as to this issue.)

[We must always distinguish between the following two completely different issues in trying to determine if the Bible is right or wrong, historically, as to what it says about “Hebron”. On the one hand, it is absolutely certain, based exclusively on non-biblical evidence, that the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country was a truly grand and imposing fortress throughout the Early Bronze Age, whereas it was merely a city in the Middle Bronze Age, no longer being a fortress worthy of the name, before basically disappearing in the Late Bronze Age, only to reappear again in the 1st millennium BCE. On the other hand, when critics of the Bible say that Hebron is not known to exist prior to the 1st millennium BCE, what they mean by that allegation (if the allegation is being made intelligently) is that the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country is not historically documented as having had the n-a-m-e “Hebron” prior to the 1st millennium BCE. Though such an argument may have some force in attacking the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives (of course I myself am not buying into that for a minute, needless to say!), note that such argument in no way contradicts what Joshua and Judges say above, but rather indeed merely effectively parrots precisely what Joshua and Judges explicitly say.]

(e) In the Middle Bronze Age, that high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country was still in existence, but it was now a shadow of its former glorious self. It was no longer a real fortress, but rather its citizens were living in the gradually decaying remains of what had once been a truly glorious fortified city. It was a bona fide city in the Middle Bronze Age, but was no longer a fortress worthy of the name.

(f) By the Late Bronze Age, such city for all intents and purposes no longer existed. Yes, a tiny population (essentially scavengers) now lived there among the ruins of this once grand fortress at that site. But except as to ancient memories, essentially there was no there there in the Late Bronze Age at that high altitude site 20 miles south of Jerusalem. (By the way, Jerusalem was, by contrast, a going concern during the Late Bronze Age, as we know from the Amarna Letters.)

(g) From the 1st millennium BCE to the present, the city of “Hebron” has existed at (or very near) that site.

[Though trying not to get off-topic, if the Patriarchal Age was the Early Bronze Age, which is one traditional view, there definitely was a very imposing fortress at that site during such time period. If the Patriarchal Age was the Middle Bronze Age, which is the other traditional view, there was a bona fide city there at that time, but no fortress worthy of the name (which might arguably fit the Patriarchal narratives better than the facts on the ground during the Early Bronze Age, though none of this is my own view of the timing of the Patriarchal Age, which I myself see as being the Late Bronze Age). In either such case, whether the Patriarchal Age is the Early or the Middle Bronze Age, the n-a-m-e of such fortress during those early time periods is problematic, which is the issue we are discussing on this thread. But if, on my view, the Patriarchal Age was the Late Bronze Age, then as just noted there was no there there as to any real city worthy of the name in the Late Bronze Age at that site high in southern hill country 20 miles south of Jerusalem.]

3. Finding an Equivalent of “Kiriath Arba” on the Older Egyptian Execration List

I see that I have quickly run out of space in this post, just as I was starting to get warmed up on this exciting topic. In my next two posts on this thread, we will look at the older Egyptian Execration List and see whether some version of “Kiriath Arba” is on that list. (It is!)

It is my considered opinion that the Biblical testimony of Joshua and Judges above as to this issue is more or less accurate regarding the two names, and the timing of such two names, of the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country. I say that, however, without regard to whether there was or was not a Conquest historically, or whether there was or was not a Hebrew King David historically, or whether or not any Hebrew King David (or equivalent historical figure) ever had such high altitude city as his capital city; such issues pose difficult questions historically, if all Biblical testimony is entirely ignored. But subject to such considerations (which are not very important in any event, one way or another, for the question of the names, and timing of the names, of this high altitude city, which is the narrow question being examined on this thread), I see the Biblical testimony above of Joshua and Judges as being spot-on regarding some version of the city name “Kiriath Arba” having been the name of that high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country prior to the time period of any Conquest (if there was one), with such city thereafter being called “Hebron” (and being King David’s first capital city, if there was a King David historically, and if he historically had such city as his first capital city).

We on the b-hebrew list will be the first ones to identify which city name on the older Egyptian Execration List is but a variant of the city name “Kiriath Arba”. Is that exciting or what?

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

Kiriath Arba on Egyptian Execration List

In this post, we will look for the equivalent of the name “Kiriath Arba” on the older Egyptian Execration List.

To briefly summarize first what I said in my prior post (as necessary background to this post), it is clear, based exclusively on non-biblical evidence, that the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country (which from the 1st millennium BCE to the present has been called “Hebron”, but whose n-a-m-e before that is unknown) (i) was a truly grand fortress throughout the Early Bronze Age, including at the very end of the Early Bronze Age about 2000 BCE, (ii) was a bona fide city in the Middle Bronze Age, but was already a shadow of its former glorious self by that time and was no longer a fortress worthy of the name, (iii) basically did not exist in the Late Bronze Age, and (iv) then reappeared as a bona fide city in the 1st millennium BCE. What is unclear on the non-biblical side is the question of what the n-a-m-e of such city was in the Early Bronze Age and/or the Middle Bronze Age, which is precisely the question we are exploring on this thread. The Biblical testimony as to this issue (ignoring Genesis entirely, though we can discuss what Genesis has to say about this topic in a later post), per Joshua 14: 15 and Judges 1:10 (and with no other Biblical testimony outside of Genesis contradicting this), is that (i) prior to the Conquest, the name of that high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country was “Kiriath Arba”, whereas (ii) after the Conquest, the name of such city was “Hebron”. Based exclusively on non-biblical evidence, it would seem certain that surely the Early Bronze Age name of the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country must be one of the 36 names on the older Egyptian Execration List (which dates to the end of the Early Bronze Age), because from an Egyptian perspective, it is hard to imagine any city in Early Bronze Age Canaan that was more to be feared, and hence execrated, by Egyptians than the truly mighty fortress located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country. Recall in that connection the following (moving on now to new material not presented in my prior post): such city is located fairly close to the northeast border of Egypt, being closer to Egypt than most other notable cities in Canaan, so that it seems inconceivable that the older Egyptian Execration List could somehow have “overlooked” such mighty fortress of a city in southern hill country. (By sharp contrast, it would be no big surprise at all if such older Egyptian Execration List overlooked one or more of the largest cities in northern Canaan in the Early Bronze Age [which by the way was Canaan’s hey-day, when Canaan was every bit as powerful as Egypt was at that time, so unlike the situation in the Late Bronze Age], since such cities were not located close to Egypt.)

Finding the Equivalent of “Kiriath Arba” on the Older Egyptian Execration List

There is one, and only one, city listed on either the older or the later Egyptian Execration Lists that may be a version of the name “Kiriath Arba”, and it appears as the fifth listed city on the older Egyptian Execration List. (By the way, I am working off of the older Egyptian Execration List as set forth at p. 58 of Anson Rainey’s “The Sacred Bridge” (2006).)

The older Egyptian Execration List dates to either the end of the 11th Dynasty or the beginning of the 12th Dynasty, and as such likely dates to just shortly before 2000 BCE, being the very end of the Early Bronze Age. The later Egyptian Execration List likely dates to the end of the 12th Dynasty, about 1800 BCE, which is well into the Middle Bronze Age. Thus the older Execration List reflects the end of the Early Bronze Age, which ended about 2000 BCE, whereas the later Execration List, by contrast, reflects the Middle Bronze Age, dating to about 200 years after the date of the older List. In Egyptian terms, Egypt’s Old Kingdom (which includes the time when the pyramids were built, but with Egypt not invading Canaan in either the Old Kingdom or the Middle Kingdom, with Egypt’s invasions of Canaan being confined to the New Kingdom in the Late Bronze Age) ended about 2000 BCE, so that the older Execration List comes at the tail end of the Old Kingdom (also being the end of the Early Bronze Age).

Also of some relevance here is that the west Semitic alphabets probably did not begin prior to the Middle Bronze Age. That means that as of the end of the Early Bronze Age, since no west Semitic alphabetical writing had even begun yet, it is likely that the only actual writing down of the name of the city that about a thousand or so years later would become “Hebron” can be found solely on the older Execration List. It is unlikely that there could be any west Semitic written record of the Early Bronze Age name of this mighty fortress of a city in the Early Bronze Age until many centuries later, possibly in the Middle Bronze Age, but more likely in the Late Bronze Age. Yet there was no there there at that high altitude site in the Late Bronze Age, which somewhat cuts against finding a Late Bronze Age spelling, using a west Semitic alphabet, of the Late Bronze Age name of the city that had been at that site in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages. But of course there could be a rendering in west Semitic in the Late Bronze Age of an archaic name remembered for this place when, centuries earlier, it had been a going concern. Did Joshua have such an archaic Canaanite name for this place, that was somewhat comparable to “Kiriath Arba”?

It is my considered opinion that Joshua, regardless of its many faults in not sticking to actual history, nevertheless had access to detailed, accurate city lists from the Late Bronze Age (of which it made great use in setting forth lists in that Biblical text of many city names in Canaan). So it is fairly likely that the first extant writing of the former city name of “Hebron” in southern hill country is found in Joshua. That’s the oldest written source using a west Semitic alphabet that we likely have as to this matter, so we must not make the mistake of writing it off due to the facts that (i) Joshua in its final form was probably not completed until the 7th century BCE, centuries after this city had begun to be called “Hebron”, and (ii) the vast bulk (but not all!) of Joshua may be fanciful and non-historical. All that matters to us on this thread is whether or not Joshua’s comments about the two names of the high altitude city of “Hebron” do or do not reflect an accurate Late Bronze Age (or Iron Age or 1st millennium BCE) knowledge of the historical name of this city’s former name, which is fairly likely in theory, and which I am trying to verify in fact is the case on this thread.

We should also note that it would make perfect sense both that (i) a variant of “Kiriath Arba” does appear (in my opinion) on the older such List from the end of the Early Bronze Age, but (ii) does not appear on the later such List from well into the Middle Bronze Age. Remember that we know from non-biblical evidence that (i) the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country was perhaps the most imposing fortress in all of Canaan throughout the Early Bronze Age, including at the end of the Early Bronze Age (and is located fairly close to Egypt), so its name must surely appear on the older Egyptian Execration List that dates to the end of the Early Bronze Age, and it would make complete sense if it appeared prominently as the fifth item of the 36 listed cities on that older List; but (ii) by sharp contrast, although a bona fide city was still in existence at such site in the Middle Bronze Age, it was already by that time a shadow of its former glorious self, no longer being a fortress worthy of the name, so it would not be particularly surprising if such mere city missed out on being included in the later Egyptian Execration List from well into the Middle Bronze Age.

Is the City Name ’a r ḥ b u on the Older Egyptian Execration List a Variant of ארבע, and Hence of “Kiriath Arba”, as to What the Bible Tells Us Was the Bronze Age Name of What Centuries Later Would Become King David’s First Capital City -- “Hebron”?

If you look at the two Egyptian Execration Lists, I think you might agree with me that the only possible candidate for being a variant of “Kiriath Arba” on either of those two lists is the fifth-listed city on the older such List from the end of the Early Bronze Age. That fifth-listed city name is:

’a r ḥ b u

Yes, I well realize that such city name on that list has a heth in the middle, whereas ארבע (the root of “Kiriath Arba”) has no such heth/ח , but I will now set forth my theory as to that.

For starters, there is no problem with the fact that “Kiriath” does not appear on such Egyptian List, since that is merely a generic west Semitic word meaning “city”, and is not the root of any city name.

Secondly, we must realize that Joshua and Judges were probably composed in the 8th - 7th century BCE, which is well over 1,000 long years after the composition of the older Egyptian Execration List. Moreover, we are inherently comparing a Hebrew rendering of an old Canaanite city name (using standard Biblical Hebrew), which Canaanite city name no longer existed at the time Judges and Joshua were composed, to an Egyptian rendering over 1,000 years earlier of what was then a contemporary Canaanite city name (done at a time, though, when Egypt may have had little detailed knowledge of the Canaanite language, as opposed to Egypt’s obvious familiarity with the Canaanite language in the Late Bronze Age, after huge numbers of poverty-stricken Canaanites had fled from drought-prone ultra-modest Late Bronze Age Canaan to ultra-rich Late Bronze Age Egypt [which latter event might possibly be the historical background for the portrayal at the end of Genesis of all the Hebrews moving lock, stock and barrel from drought-stricken Canaan to Egypt, where at least food was to be had; but once again, as per usual, I digress]).

Please give me a little leeway here. As a practical matter, there’s no way that we are going to see ’a r b ‘a on the older Egyptian Execration List, which would be an exact letter-for-letter match to the ארבע in Judges and Joshua. Not. Rather, ’a r ḥ b u is what we have to work with here, complete with that mysterious heth that is smack dab in the middle.

In my next post, I will set forth my detailed proposal as to the following three items:

(1) What was the actual historical name, in the Early Bronze Age, of the high-altitude city located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of southern hill country?

(2) How did that name become slightly garbled (not surprisingly) on the older Egyptian Execration List (which likewise dates to the Early Bronze Age), coming out as ’a r ḥ b u ?

(3) How had that name changed over the centuries, so that by the mid-1st millennium BCE it was now remembered by Judges and Joshua as having been ארבע (which is the root of the Biblical name “Kiriath Arba”)?

I believe I have come up with a coherent theory that explains the various iterations of the name that eventually came out as “Kiriath Arba” in the Books of Joshua and Judges, as being the prior name of the high altitude city in southern hill country that was later called “Hebron”. But as a practical matter, there’s simply no way that we should expect to see a letter-for-letter match to ארבע, namely ’a r b ‘a , on the older Egyptian Execration List, given the gap in time of over 1,000 years and the other relevant factors noted above.

We will see in my next post that ארבע, if viewed not as being a modern Hebrew common word but rather as being an (i) archaic (ii) Canaanite (iii) proper name from the Bronze Age, as the name of the Canaanite man from the Bronze Age who allegedly (per Joshua) is the namesake of “Kiriath Arba”, can be seen as both (a) having the same meaning as רחב, namely “great”, and (b) having as its root not רבע (as Hebrew grammarians assert is the case for the modern Hebrew common word that has that identical spelling), but rather its ancient Canaanite root is רב. One key support for that latter suggestion is that the Phoenician (Canaanite) word for the number “four” is ’rb, with no ayin/ע or anything comparable to an ayin at the end. That supports my view that the ancient Bronze Age Canaanite root here is רב, not רבע. If so, then with both רב [as the root of the archaic Canaanite proper name ארבע, with Joshua specifically telling us that this city’s founder, a Canaanite man named ארבע, was “great”/גדול] and רחב having the same meaning, namely “great”, we are ready to rumble!

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

As I noted in a prior post on this thread, it is likely that in the Early Bronze Age, there never was any Canaanite spelling at all of the Early Bronze Age city name of the high altitude city 20 miles south of Jerusalem in southern hill country, since alphabetical west Semitic spelling did not exist until well into the Middle Bronze Age. It also seems unlikely that there would have been any occasion for a Canaanite to commission a scribe to do a cuneiform spelling of such city name. Thus as to an actual literal spelling of such city name in the Early Bronze Age, it is likely that all that exists, and ever existed, is what appears as the fifth city name on the older Egyptian Execration List from the end of the Early Bronze Age: ’a r ḥ b u.

Having said that, let me now reconstruct what I think would have been the spelling of the Early Bronze Age name of such city
in the Early Bronze Age, if the Hebrew alphabet as it existed in 7th century BCE Jerusalem had then been in existence: ארחבע. Note that there is virtually a letter-for-letter spelling match to the ’a r ḥ b u that we see on the Execration List, with the only minor difference being that the Egyptian ending has an unaccented U, whereas my Hebrew rendering has an ayin/ע. Despite what would have been the “proper”, formal pronunciation of the end of this long city name, it may likely have been pronounced as (or at least been heard by Egyptians as) a type of schwa-sound, hence the Egyptian unaccented U. Note also that many west Semitic languages, such as classic Aramaic and classic Syriac, have what appears to be what amounts to a softer version of Hebrew ע at the end of their versions of the word for “four”, which words otherwise are directly comparable to ארבע as a Hebrew common word.

Now let’s ask how ארחבע in the Early Bronze Age could have become ארבע in Judges and Joshua, where the only difference between the two spellings is the notable fact that the former has a heth (a true consonant, with a harsh pronunciation) in the middle that is completely lacking in the Biblical spelling. The Hebrew linguistic key (which is the long suit of the b-hebrew list) to the answer to this question is as follows. B-o-t-h רב a-n-d רחב can mean, in both west Semitic in general and Hebrew in particular: “great”. Once we realize that both רב and רחב can mean “great”, we are more than half-way home to figuring out how closely ארחבע : ’a r ḥ b u is related to ארבע, despite the fact that the latter has no heth in the middle, and hence we are more than half-way home to figuring out this 3,000-year-old Biblical mystery!

We start with the fact that רחב in Hebrew can mean “large, great”. Thus רחב has that meaning at Isaiah 30: 23, where the last phrase is “in large [רחב] pastures”. Canaanite had that same word, though spelled in a manner, r-ḥ-b, that specifies which heth applies, as Canaanite distinguished ḥ from ḫ, a distinction that the Hebrew alphabet is incapable of making: “[Canaanite] ḥ is indicated in Egyptian by ḥ, e.g. r-ḥ-b, ‘Rehob’….” Edward Lipinski, “Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar” (2001), p. 152.

Although it is normally thought that the name of the well-known Canaanite city “Rehob” means “broad”, as it was located in a “broad” place where the Jordan River Valley proper meets up with the Jezreel Valley, that very same Canaanite city name, for a completely different Canaanite city that was “large, great” but not located at a “broad” place (such as the high altitude city of “Hebron”), could be expected to mean: “Great [City]”. That makes sense, because we know that Canaanite had the word/name r-ḥ-b, and we also know that רחב can mean “large, great” in Hebrew, with the Canaanite word/name r-ḥ-b likely also being capable of having the meaning, depending on the context, of “great, large”, and hence “Great [City]”.

We know the three true consonants in the Canaanite city name r-ḥ-b that likely means “Great City”, but what vowels or semi-vowels should be implied? If an aleph/א or aleph-type sound is implied at the beginning, and an undifferentiated schwa-type sound is implied at the end, which ending might possibly have been spelled by the Hebrew letter ע but could have been heard by an Egyptian as an unaccented U, then we have exactly what is set forth as the fifth city listed on the older Egyptian Execration List from the end of the Early Bronze Age, with virtually letter-for-letter accurate spelling:

’a r ḥ b u

I propose that the meaning of such Canaanite city name on that Egyptian List was: “Great City”. The root of ’a r ḥ b u is r ḥ b : רחב, with such root meaning “great”. Meanwhile, the root of ארבע as an archaic Canaanite proper name can be viewed as being, as discussed below, the 2-letter root רב, with such root likewise meaning (as will be demonstrated below): “great”.

In the mid-1st millennium BCE, what would be an expected standard Biblical Hebrew spelling of an archaic, Canaanite city name meaning “Great City”? Although it is true that ארבע means “four” in standard Biblical Hebrew, both Judges and Joshua of course knew that Hebrew itself has words meaning “great” or “large” (or something similar to that) which feature רב. The Hebrew word רב appears 457 times in the Bible, and it often (though not always) means “great, large, many”. At Genesis 13: 6, רב means “great”. At I Samuel 25: 10, רבו means “many”. Of particular note are the 15 times that רב is used in Joshua. At Joshua 11: 4, רב means “many” in the phrase “with horses and chariots very many”. At Joshua 17: 14-15, רב means “great” in the phrase “a great people”. At Joshua 22: 8, רב means “much” in the phrases “much riches” and “much cattle” (where at least for the first such phrase, modern English would likely render this as “great riches”). More controversially, three Hebrew words that mean “fat” feature the two consonants בר, and as such, against the traditional etymologies of such words today that try to relate all such words to a root that means “to cut”, their root could in fact be רב meaning “large, great”: (i) ברי, which at Ezekiel 34: 20 means “fat”, which is similar to the concept of “large”; (ii) בריא at Genesis 41: 20 means “fat”; and (iii) ברא at I Samuel 2: 29 means “to make yourself fat”.

West Semitic languages other than Hebrew also use rb to mean “great, large”, such as Ugaritic. Most importantly, certainly the author of Joshua, who was the world’s leading expert regarding old Canaanite names of cities in Canaan, would have known that the Canaanite word for “large” is rabi (per Shlomo Izre’el), whose consonantal root obviously is rb : רב. Richard Hess, in “Amarna Personal Names” (1993) at p. 211, reports the following as being west Semitic (Canaanite) elements present in personal names in the Amarna Letters: “rby ‘to be great’…ra-bi-ilu, rabu-ṣí-id-qí”. Note that Joshua 13: 25 reports the city name רבה : “Rabbah”, meaning “great” or “Great City”, where רבה is the feminine of רב, with the root meaning “great” being: rb : רב. Similarly, a city on the southern edge of the Ayalon Valley in the Amarna Letters has the city name “Rubutu”, featuring the root rb and meaning “Great City”.

Of particular interest here is the fact that in Phoenician, which is one form of archaic Canaanite, the Phoenician word for “four” has no ending at all: ’rb. That suggests that the Canaanite root for the number “four” was not רבע, as Hebrew grammarians would have it, but rather was the 2-consonant root רב.

Indeed, it is not at all far-fetched to wonder whether the archaic meaning of the Hebrew common word ארבע itself had originally meant “great, many, large”, and only gradually came to have the specific acquired meaning of “four”. In that connection, it is commonly thought that primitive man counted in terms of “one, two, three, many”: “Well into the 20th century there were still so-called ‘primitive languages’ whose speakers counted no further than three, after which came not four but ‘many’.” Philologos http://forward.com/articles/203645/why- ... nd-almost/.
Since rb : רב in Hebrew and Ugaritic means “great”, and rabi in Canaanite means “great”, Joshua might well have viewed the root of ארבע as being רב and meaning “great, large, many”. Even though that is not how this matter is viewed by today’s scholars in analyzing the (i) modern (i.e., 7th century BCE Jerusalem standard Biblical Hebrew) (ii) Hebrew (iii) common word (iv) that only means “four” (with modern scholars being obsessed with finding tri-consonantal roots for Hebrew words -- even רב itself is alleged to have the tri-consonantal root רבב), it could very well be how Joshua looked at it, regarding the very different matter of an (i) archaic (i.e., Bronze Age) (ii) Canaanite (iii) proper name (iv) that probably did n-o-t mean “four”, but rather instead likely meant “great” [רב : rb].

Perhaps clinching the matter here is that Joshua flat out tells us at Joshua 14: 15 that he considers ארבע as an ancient Canaanite name to have meant “great”, where he uses ארבע both as part of the name “Kiriath Arba” and (without repeating the name, but see Joshua 15: 13) also as a man’s name (who is portrayed by Joshua as being the namesake of “Kiriath Arba”), and then immediately says that such man was “great” : גדול. Moreover, Joshua 15: 13 says that Arba : ארבע is the father of Anak, and at least according to Numbers 13: 33, the sons of Anak were giants, so it is likely that at least one meaning of גדול at Joshua 14: 15 is that Arba; ארבע is “large” of stature. As noted above, elsewhere in Joshua רב is used with a meaning of “great”. So Joshua may well have thought that the ancient Canaanite meaning of ארבע as a proper name was “great”, and the likely reason he thought that was because, rightly or wrongly (rightly, in my view), Joshua saw רב meaning “great” as being the 2-letter root of ארבע, which though ארבע had admittedly come to have the sole meaning of “four” in Hebrew by the 1st millennium BCE, nevertheless in ancient Canaanite ארבע was viewed by Joshua as having meant “great”.

Now consider that the historical name “Rehob” of the Canaanite city near the Jezreel Valley is simply רחב in Hebrew, having neither anything beyond those three letters at either the beginning or the end. As such, רחב really doesn’t look too much like ’a r ḥ b u, which has an aleph/א at the beginning, and some sort of ending. In fact, in many ways ארבע looks more like ’a r ḥ b u than does רחב, despite the fact that ארבע is obviously missing anything comparable to the heth in the middle of ’a r ḥ b u.

No matter how late Joshua may have been composed in its final form as we have it today, and regardless of the fact that much of Joshua is non-historical, nevertheless it is clear that its author had access to detailed, accurate city lists from the Late Bronze Age. So we must not make the mistake of dismissing the spelling of the pre-Conquest name of “Hebron” in Joshua.

I see ’a r ḥ b u and רחב and ארבע as being three different ways of spelling a Canaanite city name that could mean “Great City”. That would be an ideal meaning for the mighty fortress city 20 miles south of Jerusalem in its hey-day in the Early Bronze Age. That ancient Canaanite name, ’a r ḥ b u : ארחבע, was maintained throughout the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, although it was increasingly anachronistic as the city went through a very long period of great decline. Though never so stated in the Bible, one can easily imagine a small group of Hebrews, who began to live in the virtually abandoned city in the early Iron Age, deciding to jettison that old Canaanite name, which may now have become incomprehensible and in any event (even if its meaning of “Great City” were correctly ascertained) no longer made sense anyway. Why not re-name this small town in honor of the Hebrew Patriarchs, and call it “Hebron”? The point here, though, is that the third such spelling, ארבע, in many ways looked more like the first such spelling, ’a r ḥ b u, than does the second such spelling, רחב. With Joshua very possibly having access to something comparable to the first such spelling, ’a r ḥ b u, per his Late Bronze Age city lists, it made sense for Judges and Joshua to choose to spell the archaic Canaanite city name that was the predecessor of the post-Conquest city name “Hebron” as being the third such spelling: ארבע, which then comes out, not surprisingly, in these two Biblical texts as “Kiriath Arba”, having an archaic Canaanite meaning of “Great City”.

* * *

Thus I conclude that Judges and Joshua are historically accurate when Judges 1:10 says: “…now the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba”; and Joshua 14: 15 says: “And the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba”; where the root of the city name transliterated by KJV as “Kirjatharba” is: ארבע. It is my opinion that ארבע as a city name can mean “Great City”, and that the Canaanite city name that we see as the fifth city listed on the older Egyptian Execration List, ’a r ḥ b u, likewise also meant “Great City”. Finally, I see Judges and Joshua as selecting the name “Kiriath Arba” as their rendering of the prior name of “Hebron”, where its root is ארבע, instead of the attested Canaanite city name רחב, where both can mean “Great City”, because although ארבע lacks a heth in the middle, it nevertheless looks more like ’a r ḥ b u than does רחב.

Remember, the Early Bronze Age name of “Hebron” (the high altitude city 20 miles south of Jerusalem in southern hill country) simply m-u-s-t be on that older Egyptian Execration List that dates to the end of the Early Bronze Age (whereas there is no real surprise, by contrast, that it’s not on the later Egyptian Execration List from the Middle Bronze Age, at a time when the formerly glorious fortress at that high altitude location in southern hill country had greatly declined). The o-n-l-y viable candidate for that is the fifth city on the older Execration List, if Judges and Joshua are more or less right in what they say about this matter, which I think is indeed the case. Accordingly:

(i) the likely Hebrew spelling that would have applied in the Early Bronze Age to that city name, if the Hebrew alphabet had then existed, is ארחבע;

(ii) the Egyptian rendering of that Canaanite city name at the end of the Early Bronze Age came out, quite accurately (except as to the final letter only), as ’a r ḥ b u;

(iii) the Biblical spelling of the prior name of “Hebron” comes out in Judges and Joshua as ארבע (as the root of “Kiriath Arba”), with such Biblical spelling looking quite a bit like ’a r ḥ b u, despite lacking anything comparable to the heth in the middle. Joshua likely had a Late Bronze Age city list that showed, as the prior name of “Hebron” in southern hill country, an archaic spelling somewhat comparable to ’a r ḥ b u. But rather than rendering that as ארחבע, which would have seemed like gobbledygook to his 7th century BCE audience, Joshua chose to render that archaic city name as a form of ארבע, namely as “Kiriath Arba”; and

(iv) all three such varying spellings over time of the prior name of “Hebron” have the same meaning: “Great City”.

[Yes! I think I’ve got it. That’s one more 3,000-year-old Biblical mystery that has bitten the dust. Yes!]

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

Indeed, ארבע ARBA, 'four', is from the root רב RB, 'many'. From this root are also רבבה 'ten thousand', and רביבים RBIYBIYM, 'drops', as in Deut. 32:2. Also ארבה ARBEH, 'locust'; and many more.

The uni-literal root R in the composed bi-literal root RB indicates that it refers to a material state of many particles. And, that which can be accumulated can be made large, and hence RAB, 'large, noble', from which: rabbi.

It appears to me that ריב RIYB, 'quarrel, strife, brawl', as in Gen. 13:7, is essentially, 'mingling, ripping'. The English word comes possibly from 'hurl', and is related to the French 'guerre'.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

In other words, ריב or מריבה, as in Gen. 13:8 is a melee.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Isaac Fried:

You wrote: “Indeed, ארבע ARBA, 'four', is from the root רב RB, 'many'.”

I am so glad that you agree with me as to that.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois