Zuzim = Z-W-Z + YM
I have recently come up with a new linguistic analysis of ZWZ-YM at Genesis
14: 5 [traditionally transliterated as “Zuzim”]. Since this seems to be a
foreign name, it is unlikely that a later editor would have added in that
interior vav/W as a plene spelling update. Rather, there’s probably a
3-letter, 3-syllable root of this foreign name, namely: Z-W-Z.
At Nuzi, we find the following name [at p. 182b of Gelb, Purves, MacRae, “
Nuzi Personal Names” (1943)].
Zu-U-zu
I have used a capital U here to represent a U with an acute accent. It’s
hard to explain exactly what that acute accent means, other than that it’s a
different cuneiform sign than a regular U. So we see that it’s a separate
syllable of its own, and it’s a different cuneiform sign than a regular U.
Whether it was accented or not, or had a different sound than a regular u, is
not so clear. But what is clear is that in the name Zu-U-zu at Nuzi, the U
with an acute accent is very, very prominent. If the early Hebrew author
heard Zu-U-zu in Hurrian, he would be expected to record that in Hebrew as
Z-W-Z. It’s a 3-syllable name: Z-W-Z = Zu-U-zu. Note how critically
important that interior vav/W is.
Of relevance in evaluating Z-W-Z + YM at Genesis 14: 5 is the question of
whether these zu-u-zu people lived “in these (parts)”, that is, B-HM. There
is no city named “Ham” in the ancient or medieval world, nor indeed any
city in greater ancient Canaan whose name begins with a he/H. So we should
probably view HM as meaning “these” or “them”, which is the meaning it has
44 other times in the Bible, instead of uniquely having the impossible
meaning of “Ham” at Genesis 14: 5.
Instead of the ZWZYM/Z-W-Z + YM at Genesis 14: 5 being “giants” per
Deuteronomy [the majority scholarly view] or the “Shasu” [the minority
scholarly
view] at Ham, under my new analysis we should view the Zuzim as being “the
Zu-U-zu people” who lived “in these (parts)”, that is, at and near
Ashteroth. The next step would then be to ask which historical people in the
Transjordan the early Hebrew author would have called Z-W-Z + YM, and why he
would
have chosen that particular nomenclature for those people.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
