Yohanan bin-Dawidh: * You wrote: “ I do not adhere to the notion that Midyan isMitanni, unless his claim is that the wife of 'Avraham, i.e. K'turah wasHurrian, and it was her, rather than 'Avraham who gave Midyan his name? Thetext of the Miq'ra places Midyan as the son of 'Avraham. And with regards toplace names, the only way Midyan is linked with Mitanni, is if people fromMitanni uprooted themselves and moved to Kena'an, much like 'Avraham moved toKena'an.” * Two of Keturah’s sons by Abraham are named MDYN and MDN. At Genesis 25: 6, both MDYN and MDN are sent “eastward,unto the east country”. That makes senseonly if Keturah was a Hurrian from “the east country”, that is, the Hurrianstate of Mitanni in Late Bronze Age eastern Syria. * Keturah, an ethnic Hurrian with a classic Hurrian name whohailed from Mitanni, had two sons who were named after her homeland ofMitanni. The Hittite cuneiform spellingof Mitanni is mi-ta-an-ni, having 4 cuneiform segments, whereas the AmarnaLetters’ abbreviated spelling of Mitanni is mi-ta-ni, having 3 Akkadian-style cuneiformsegments. In my opinion, the Hurrianverb mid- is the root of the name Mitanni, with such verb routinely having theD change to T when Hurrian suffixes are added. On that basis, the Amarna Letters’ mi-ta-ni was conceptualized as beingmi-da-ni and was spelled in alphabetical Hebrew as MDN: one Hebrew letter per one Hurrian/cuneiformsegment. As to the longer version with aHebrew yod/Y, scholar Edward Lipinski has pointed out that in the phrase “Uriahthe Hittite”, XTY should be viewed as being the well-attested Hurrian personalname Xuti-ya or Xuti-a, where Hebrew yod/Y represents the Hurrian true vowel Aas its own separate segment. Applyingthat concept to MDYN, and recognizing that Biblical Hebrew never doubles aconsonant if there is no vowel in between, we see that mi-ta-an-ni wasconceptualized as being mi-da-a-ni, and hence spelled MDYN in alphabeticalBiblical Hebrew: 4 Hebrew letters for 4Hurrian/cuneiform segments. * If Keturah were from Arabia, as often supposed, it would notmake sense for her children to be sent “eastward, unto the east country”, thatis, to eastern Syria, which in the Late Bronze Age was the location of theHurrian state of Mitanni. In fact, “Keturah”is a Hurrian name, two of her sons have names -- MDN and MDYN -- that recallher Hurrian homeland of Mitanni, and as such it is very fitting that at Genesis25: 6, sons MDN and MDYN are sent “eastward, unto the east country”, that is,to mi-ta-ni/mi-da-ni/MDN, alternatively spelled mi-ta-an-ni/mi-da-a-ni/MDYN. * Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois
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