Nir Cohen:
You wrote: “where did you get the strange idea that solomon exported
horses? certainly not from 1 kings 10. all it says is 1) solomon accrued
horses;
2) the origin of
the horse IMPORT (not EXPORT, mind you!) was so-ans-so; 3) horses and
chariots
were very expensive. the rest is deduction which is not in the text.”
I got that from I Kings 10: 29. The prior verse, I Kings 10: 28, tells
where King Solomon got horses. Then I Kings 10:29 says that King Solomon YC(
horses to Hurrian [XTY : H-XT-YM] rulers and other rulers in Syria. YC(
means “to exit, go forth, or go out”, and hence can mean “export”, but
could not mean “import”. Most translations use the word “exported” here,
including New International Version, English Standard Version, and the Jewish
Publication Society (1985). As one typical translation, here is the
English Standard Version translation of I Kings 10: 28-29:
“28 And Solomon's import of horses was from Egypt and Kue, and the king's
traders received them from Kue at a price. 29 A chariot could be imported
from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150, and so through
the king's traders they were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and
the kings of Syria.”
You at least agree that I Kings 10 is talking about “overspending and
luxury”. So then why in the world mention small-time, oh-so-modest Que/Kue in
southeast Anatolia? If one is talking about “overspending and luxury” in
almost mythical proportions here, then to me, in that context, it’s more
likely that QW-H is referring to the semi-legendary place where domesticated
horses may have originated: Qijia in truly ancient China. Que is way too
prosaic for this passage. Moreover, I don’t think Que was ever associated
with horses anyway. If you’re going to brag that King Solomon was so
great that he was in position to export horses to “Hurrians”, that is, to the
successors to the ancient Hurrians who had been world-famous in their
bygone day (the Late Bronze Age) for being the finest horsemen in the world,
with the finest horses for their state-of-the-art horse-drawn chariots, then
you wouldn’t say that Solomon got those excellent horses from small-time,
oh-so-modest Que, would you?
I understand that Que was in historical existence in the 10th century BCE,
whereas the Qijia culture, which is sometimes credited with bringing the
domesticated horse to the Eurasian steppe (Hurrian country), was many
centuries in the past by then. But a Biblical author who is using XTY :
H-XT-YM
as a colorful reference to the modern-day successors to the Hurrians, who
were already 400 years in the past by the time of King Solomon, could also
refer to the semi-legendary reputed home of domesticated horses, in far-off
China, as allegedly being the place where Solomon got the world’s finest
horses. To me, that fits this passage’s theme of “overspending and luxury”
better than does a prosaic reference to historical Que.
Last but not least, consider linguistics. At the Late Bronze Age Hurrian
province of Nuzi, the Hurrian personal name Qa-we-enni is attested; -enni
is a standard Hurrian suffix, and the root Qa-we is not a Hurrian common
word or otherwise known in Hurrian. Is Qa-we in Hurrian coming from the same
place as QW-H in Hebrew [where -H may likely be a Hebrew ending]? Qa-we in
Hurrian, and the Biblical Hebrew letters QW/qof-vav, are a perfect
linguistic match, but what are they referencing? Are they possibly
referencing
the long-gone, semi-legendary place of origin of all domesticated horses,
namely the Qijia culture in truly ancient China? To me, that meaning would
make perfect sense, in context, (i) for a Hurrian name, with the Hurrians
being the premier horsemen of their day, and (ii) for I Kings 10: 28-29, where
an integral part of the “overspending and luxury” for which King Solomon
was duly famous/infamous was that Solomon allegedly got the world’s finest
horses from the very place where horses had first been domesticated, and
then Solomon exported those fine horses to the modern-day successors in Syria
of the people who formerly had been the finest horsemen in the world: the
Hurrians.
Who cares about small-time historical Que and the small-time historical
Neo-Hittite kingdoms [which the academic community says are the intended
references here]? In my opinion, King Solomon is being portrayed here at I
Kings 10: 28-29 as being much bigger and grander than that. Forget Que.
Think
big. After all, it’s King Solomon we’re talking about here.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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