On this thread we have asked if the personal name TMR may be a shortened
form of T-)MR, and if the personal name MMR) may be a shortened form of
M-)MR), in both cases adding in an initial aleph that was omitted in order to
form
the personal name. That latter name then raises the further question of
the longstanding scholarly discussion as to whether the Biblical names “Moreh”
and “Moriah” may likewise be possibly based on the underlying word “
Amorite”, with the initial aleph once again having been omitted to form these
names. Though the words Amorite and Amurru [or Amuri, Amurri, Amu-ura, etc.]
always have the initial aleph [or vowel A in non-Hebrew languages],
nevertheless it may be that names that are based on such word routinely drop
the
initial aleph [or vowel A]. Thus Mu-ur-ku-nas-a$ is “a country which exported
to Nuzi horses and cloth”; Mu-ur looks like A-mu-ur [or Amurri] without the
initial A, and may likely have the same meaning. “Moriah” is a name at
Genesis 22: 2; dropping off the Hebrewized ending -H, the basic name is MRY.
That is the Hebrew spelling of “Amorite”, )MRY, such as at Genesis 48: 22,
but here with the initial aleph being omitted in this name based on that
word. Likewise, “Moreh” is a name at Genesis 12: 6; once again dropping off
the Hebrewized ending -H, the basic name is MWR. One of the six attested
spellings of Amurru in the Amarna Letters is a-mu-ur-ra at EA 162: 1. If the
initial A is omitted to form a name, and if the doubled R is eliminated by
dropping the first R, we are left with mu-u-ra. That 3-syllable name mu-u-ra
would be rendered by the 3 Hebrew letters M-W-R, just as we see at Genesis
12: 6. Finally, if we instead drop the second R from that Amarna rendering,
we have mu-ur-a. That 3-syllable name mu-ur-a would be rendered by the 3
Hebrew letters M-R-), which is what we see at Genesis 14: 13 in the form of
M-MR), which I see as meaning “from Amurru”. I propose that all of these
various names mean “Amorite” or “Amurru”; it’s just that when forming a
name based on that word, the initial aleph is treated as being prosthetic and
dropped, which seems to be the consistent pattern.
One benefit of the foregoing approach is that it helps solve the
longstanding Biblical mystery of how the references to Shechem and Amorite at
Genesis
48: 22 can correlate with Shechem in chapter 34 of Genesis, where there is
no reference to Amorite, but there would nevertheless seem to be an obvious
substantive match to what the text is talking about. The answer is supplied
by Genesis 12: 6, which on the above view references both Shechem and,
albeit with a slightly different spelling, Amorite, in the form of “Moreh”.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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