the following quote of
http://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=ABRAHAM
may be of interest
nir cohen
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I. Name.
1. Various Forms:
In the Old Testament, when applied, to the patriarch, the name appears as
'abhram, up to Gen 17:5; thereafter always as 'abhraham. Two other persons are
named 'abhiram. The identity of this name with 'abhram cannot be doubted in
view of the variation between 'abhiner and 'abhner, 'abhishalom and 'abhshalom,
etc. Abraham also appears in the list at Karnak of places conquered by Sheshonk
I: 'brm (no. 72) represents 'abram, with which Spiegelberg (Aegypt. Randglossen
zum Altes Testament, 14) proposes to connect the preceding name (so that the
whole would read "the field of Abram." Outside of Palestine this name (Abiramu)
has come to light just where from the Biblical tradition we should expect to
find it, namely, in Babylonia (e.g. in a contract of the reign of Apil-Sin,
second predecessor of Hammurabi; also for the aunt (!) of Esarhaddon 680-669
BC). Ungnad has recently found it, among documents from Dilbat dating from the
Hammurabi dynasty, in the forms A-ba-am-ra-ma, A-ba-am-
ra-am, as well as A-ba-ra-ma.
2. Etymology:
Until this latest discovery of the apparently full, historical form of the
Babylonian equivalent, the best that could be done with the etymology was to
make the first constituent "father of" (construct -i rather than suffix -i),
and the second constituent "Ram," a proper name or an abbreviation of a name.
(Yet observe above its use in Assyria for a woman; compare ABISHAG; ABIGAIL).
Some were inclined rather to concede that the second element was a mystery,
like the second element in the majority of names beginning with 'abh and 'ach,
"father" and "brother." But the full cuneiform writing of the name, with the
case-ending am, indicates that the noun "father" is in the accusative, governed
by the verb which furnishes the second component, and that this verb therefore
is probably ramu (= Hebrew racham) "to love," etc.; so that the name would mean
something like "he loves the (his) father." (So Ungnad, also Ranke in
Gressmann's article "Sage und Geschichte in den Patriarchenerzah
lungen," ZATW (1910), 3.) Analogy proves that this is in the Babylonian
fashion of the period, and that judging from the various writings of this and
similar names, its pronunciation was not far from 'abh-ram.
3. Association:
While the name is thus not "Hebrew" in origin, it made itself thoroughly at
home among the Hebrews, and to their ears conveyed associations quite different
from its etymological signification. "Popular etymology" here as so often
doubtless led the Hebrew to hear in 'abh-ram, "exalted father," a designation
consonant with the patriarch's national and religious significance. In the form
'abh-raham his ear caught the echo of some root (perhaps r-h-m; compare Arabic
ruham, "multitude") still more suggestive of the patriarch's extensive progeny,
the reason ("for") that accompanies the change of name Gen 17:5 being intended
only as a verbal echo of the sense in the sound. This longer and commoner form
is possibly a dialectical variation of the shorter form, a variation for which
there are analogies in comparative Semitic grammar. It is, however, possible
also that the two forms are different names, and that 'abh-raham is
etymologically, and not merely by association of sound, "fath
er of a multitude" (as above). (Another theory, based on South-Arabic
orthography, in Hommel, Altisraelitische Ueberlieferung, 177.)
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