Old West Semitic Words from the Valley vs. Classic Biblical Hebrew
In asking whether the oldest parts of the Torah may have been committed to
writing as early as the Late Bronze Age, one key issue is whether the
vocabulary of west Semitic Canaanite at that time was or was not very similar
to the vocabulary of classic Biblical Hebrew in Iron Age Judah. Of course,
the pre-1200 BCE archaic case endings must be discarded, and we should
rightly expect that the endings generally may differ. But are the roots the
same, and with the same meaning, so that vocabulary is really no problem?
As a start toward answering that important question, let’s take a look
here at the three west Semitic words that were recorded in cuneiform by Yapaxu
and his successors in the Ayalon Valley in Year 14, near the end of the
Amarna Age. [Remember, we’re looking at old west Semitic Canaanite words,
n-o-t Akkadian words, to see if those old Canaanite words match up quite
nicely with the vocabulary of classic Biblical Hebrew in Iron Age Judah.]
1. Amarna Letter EA 297: 13, from Yapaxu, who is the tent dweller-hating
firstborn son of longtime Amorite princeling ruler Milk-i-Ilu.
si-ri = “pot”.
That west Semitic word compares directly to the following Biblical Hebrew
word:
SYR = “pot” at Exodus 16: 3; II Kings 4: 41.
Here the match is exact, once one drops the archaic pre-1200 case ending.
[By the way, we are usually certain as to the meaning of each of these old
west Semitic words, because in most cases the west Semitic word is
directly juxtaposed with the Akkadian word that has the identical meaning.
Thus
we can also check whether the meaning of the west Semitic root changed over
a period of 700 years. It didn’t!]
2. Amarna Letter EA 296: 18, from Yaxtiru, who likely is allied with
Yapaxu’s successor Adda-danu.
la-bi-tu = “mudbrick”.
Although having a different ending, that west Semitic word can readily be
compared to the following Biblical Hebrew word:
LBNH = “mudbrick”, at Genesis 11:3; Ezekiel 4: 1. [This word appears
most famously in Exodus, but in the plural.]
In classic Biblical Hebrew, in Canaanite, and for that matter in Akkadian
as well, the word for “mudbrick” can be viewed as being LB + ending.
3. Amarna Letter EA 292: 29, from Adda-danu, who is Yapaxu’s successor
late in Year 14.
ba-ni-ti = “I built”.
That west Semitic word compares directly to the following Biblical Hebrew
word [and since it’s a verb, there’s not even an archaic case ending to
drop here]:
BNYTY = “I have built”, at I Kings 8: 13.
Conclusion
Based on the Amarna Letters from Jerusalem and from the Ayalon Valley just
northwest of Jerusalem, it appears that west Semitic words used in the
Amarna Age can usually be traced directly to Biblical Hebrew words. Scholars
say that those west Semitic words in the Amarna Letters are “Canaanite”,
and are definitely n-o-t “Hebrew”. But that narrow view of what properly
constitutes “Hebrew” is not helpful as to the key question, which is
whether Amarna Age Canaanite and classic Biblical Hebrew in Iron Age Judah
essentially shared the same vocabulary. Note that in 10 out of 12 cases from
Jerusalem and the Ayalon Valley, the root of the old west Semitic word from
the mid-14th century BCE had not changed 700 years later in the time of 8th
- 7th century BCE Judah. I tentatively conclude from that small sample
size that Amarna Age Canaanite and Iron Age Judah classic Biblical Hebrew
essentially shared the same vocabulary. If the first Hebrews living in the
Late Bronze Age committed a portion of the Torah to writing, then the Jews
under King Hezekiah in early 7th century BCE Jerusalem would know the west
Semitic vocabulary that was used in that truly ancient writing. It seems to
me that the underlying vocabulary of west Semitic changed little over those
700 years.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
