Chavoux Luyt: 1. You wrote: “[N]o name in Hebrew starting with "U" will start with the letter waw (as you also mentioned). The "u" sound for waw was a late development and even as such the waw is used optionally to help pronunciation rather than being a proper ‘letter’.” I agree that vav/W is used here as a vowel indicator, not specifically as a U. But the key is that in recording foreign proper names, especially Hurrian names, the early Hebrew author was forced to come up with some way to record a foreign vowel that was its own separate syllable and that was surrounded by consonants. While unknown in Hebrew, that was commonplace in Hurrian. Consider now the following four examples of that: (i) “Ephron”. i-pi-ri-e-ne, meaning “(Hurrian) lord” in Hurrian, is (-P-R-W-N in chapter 23 of Genesis. Note that the Hebrew vav/W represents E as its own separate syllable, surrounded by consonants. [“Ephron” is said to be a “Hittite”, that is, a Hurrian lord in 14th century BCE Canaan.] (ii) “Hebron”. In the Patriarchal narratives, xa-vur-u-ne, meaning “ heaven” or “heaven on earth” in Hurrian, is X-BR-W-N. Here the Hebrew vav/W represents U as its own separate syllable, surrounded by consonants. [The LMLK seals in the 1st millennium BCE have no vav/W for the city of Hebron, but that interior vav/W was needed in Hurrian.] (iii) “Nahor”. ni-xa-a-ri, meaning “(Hurrian) dowry”, is N-X-W-R. Here the Hebrew vav/W represents A as its own separate syllable, surrounded by consonants. [Nahor provided the “Hurrian dowry”, in the sense that the successor Patriarchs’ brides are Nahor’s female descendants, who were raised in the heart of Hurrianland, in Nahrima, east of the upper Euphrates River.] (iv) “Hobah”. The U-bi, meaning “barley” in Hurrian, is H-WBH. The Hebrew vav/W here represents U as its own separate syllable, surrounded by consonants. We see the pattern. Hebrew vav/W can represent any vowel. The key is that it represents a foreign vowel that is its own separate syllable, surrounded by consonants. Note also that no other Hebrew letter would work here. Yod/Y was not used as a vowel indicator in the Bronze Age. Ayin after he/H would indicate that the first syllable is H(, whereas what’s needed here is to represent a foreign vowel as its own separate syllable. Aleph would be the old Akkadian version, Api, whereas the early Hebrew author wants to represent the newer Canaanite and Hurrian pronunciation. So only vav/W will work here. 2. You wrote: In response to my statement that “not a single city name in
greater ancient Canaan begins with he/H”, you wrote: “Well, here we have one counter-example :-). Names like "Hebron" and "Hormah" comes to mind? This feels to me slightly like stretching the evidence beyond what can really be concluded from it. You assume (on what grounds?) that the original text was Akkadian with a scibal error. In this case the evidence just doesn't seem convincing to me.” Each of Hebron and Hormah starts with a heth/X, not a he/H. Many toponyms start with heth/X, but none in greater ancient Canaan start with he/H. I see HM at Genesis 14: 5 as being the Hebrew common word “these”. Don’t you? In context, B-HM means “at Ashteroth”, with a literal meaning of “in these (parts)”. As you know, not a single word in the Bible begins with a vav/W as a vowel. So 1st millennium BCE scribes could not imagine WBH being the ancient name U-bi, a construction unknown in Hebrew, though commonplace in Hurrian. With WBH and H-WBH seeming to be impossible, the scribes came up with XWBH, changing what had been a he/H to a heth/X. As just noted, no geographical place name begins with he/H, but many begin with heth/X. XWBH seemed to mean “ hiding place”, and so that’s what the 1st millennium BCE scribes wrote down. Because H-WBH seemed “impossible”, it became XWBH. Yet scholars readily admit that in a Late Bronze Age composition, after “ Damascus” one would definitely expect to see either the Api or the Upi or the Ubi. XWBH in the received text does not seem to fit, due to the initial heth/X. But it’s a one-letter, fully understandable scribal error. Originally it was H-WBH. Please note that the o-n-l-y way to record “the Ubi” in early Hebrew is H-WBH. There is no other way. It’s letter-for-letter accuracy. And since there are dozens of Hurrian names in the Patriarchal narratives, we would expect here the Hurrianized version of the Bronze Age name that meant “the Damascus area”, namely: the Ubi. There is no town or place north of Damascus called XWBH. By sharp contrast, the context demands a reference to H-WBH, “the Ubi”. It’s right there at Genesis 14: 15, once we recognize the one-letter scribal error. Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
