On this thread, we are investigating why there are so many vav nun
suffixes, featuring an interior vav, in the oldest part of the Bible, the
Patriarchal narratives. [Or spell this ancient Hebrew letter “waw” if you
prefer;
it matters not.] By my count, over 40% of the common words and personal
names in the Bible with a vav nun suffix are in the Patriarchal narratives!
This, despite the general paucity of plene spelling in the oldest parts of the
Bible. What gives?
Here are 7 personal names in the Patriarchal narratives with a vav nun
suffix, in the order in which they appear in the text. In looking at these 7
personal names, we will get huge clues as to the origin of the mysterious vav
nun suffix. We may even begin to question the received wisdom that the vav
in a vav nun suffix (i) was from the beginning a mere vowel, and (ii) as
such could not have been part of a text written in west Semitic prior to the
9th century BCE.
1. (PR-WN, at Genesis 23: 8. It’s probably a non-Semitic name. The roots
E-pi-ri and I-pu-ur, and the names I-ip-pa-ri and A-pa-ri, are attested at
Nuzi [per Gelb and Purves, “Nuzi Personal Names” (1943)]. [His father’s
name, CXR, seems to be a slightly shortened version of the name Za-Xa-a-eRi$
at Nuzi. Gelb and Purves think this name was Ca-Xa-a-eRi$. See #5 below for
C/ssade vs. Z/zayin, which generally cannot be distinguished in
non-Semitic.]
2. )YL-WN, at Genesis 26: 34 and Genesis 36: 2. This likewise is probably
a non-Semitic name. A-i-li is attested as a name at Nuzi. [The name of
Esau’s other non-Semitic father-in-law is B)R-Y. The root of that name is
probably B)R, which is attested at Nuzi as Bi-e-ru. (That’s likely the same
name as at Amarna Letter EA 174.) See #5 below for the non-Semitic suffix -Y.
As we are beginning to see, the root of each non-Semitic name in the
Patriarchal narratives is attested at Nuzi. But what about the vav nun suffix?]
3. $M(-WN, at Genesis 29: 22, being the name of Jacob’s #2 son. Simeon
was borne by and named by Leah, who to that point had spent her entire life in
eastern Syria, a non-Semitic homeland. Both $M and $M-( are virgin pure
west Semitic, and Leah herself spoke west Semitic as her first language
[though she may have been bi-lingual in a non-Semitic language, and perhaps she
also spoke pre-Aramaic as well in dealing with the household help like Bilhah
and Zilpah]. But non-Semitic nouns and names out in eastern Syria often,
when appearing in a sentence, had a long suffix that featured we-ni or we-na
or we-ne, all of which would come out in defective Hebrew spelling as -W-N,
where the vav in this non-Semitic vav nun suffix component was a true
consonant, not a vowel.
4. ZBL-WN, at Genesis 30: 20. Leah in Naharim in eastern Syria gives her
last son a name that, once again, ends with -WN, which “sounds”
non-Semitic. [The root is probably west Semitic ZBL, meaning “to exalt” and/or
“to
dwell with”.] As is well known, this name has 3 different spellings in the
Masoretic text, which may indicate that this was a strange, foreign-sounding
name that later Hebrews found difficult to spell.
5. CBY-WN, at Genesis 36: 2. It’s probably non-Semitic, with CB or ZB
being the root of a name of a place in northern Syria, and -Y likely being
-iYa, a generic theophoric in non-Semitic. [The name Zi-be-i is attested as a
name at Nuzi, where non-Semitic ssade is usually represented by English Z.]
Of great importance to this thread, -W-N is ubiquitous as one component in
the suffixes of non-Semitic names in the only Amarna Letter written in
non-Semitic. It’s actually quite easy to document all aspects of all these
non-Semitic names in the Patriarchal narratives, if we’re willing to consider “
foreign elements” -- the non-Semitic foreigners from Naharim in eastern Syria
who briefly dominated Canaan in the Late Bronze Age.
6. GR$-WN, at Genesis 46: 11, is the son of Levi, with Levi being another
of Leah’s sons born in eastern Syria. [The root is probably west Semitic
GR$, referring to exile or refugee.]
7. )L-WN, at Genesis 46: 14, whose name has the same vav nun suffix as his
father, ZBL-WN. [The root here is probably west Semitic )L, meaning “
highest”.] Note that the root of all four Hebrew names is west Semitic,
whereas
the root of the three non-Semitic names is non-Semitic. The common
denominator is that all 7 names end with vav nun. But why are these 4 Hebrew
names
sharing the vav nun suffix with 3 non-Semitic names? Isn’t that suspicious?
And does it matter that in the non-Semitic names [if the Biblical text is
historically accurate, which I think it is], that interior vav would have
been a true consonant, rather than being a vowel?
All 7 of these names, especially the first 5, seem closely linked to
eastern Syria, which in the Late Bronze Age [and at no other time] had the name
set forth at Genesis 24: 10: Naharim. We know for certain from Amarna Letter
EA 24 that many non-Semitic names from Naharim in a sentence feature a long
suffix that includes the suffix sequence -W-N. If the Hebrew author lived
in the Late Bronze Age and knew what he was talking about [as I believe is
the case], then all 7 of these names make perfect sense in a Late Bronze Age
historical context. The vav nun suffix that is so common in the Patriarchal
narratives, but relatively rare elsewhere in the Bible as to common words
and personal names, seems to be a deliberate attempt by the early Hebrew
author of the Patriarchal narratives to reflect the non-Semitic ambience of
Naharim, whose maryannu for a brief period of time in the 14th century BCE were
the princeling rulers of many cities throughout Canaan. As such, the
concentration of vav nun suffixes in common words and personal names in the
Patriarchal narratives is arguably dating the composition of this text to the
mid-14th century BCE.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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