Ezekiel 16:3 can be viewed as being an accurate one-sentence summary of
the Patriarchal narratives and of the historical background of the
Patriarchal Age:
“And say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy
nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother
a
[XTY].”
The Amorites were west Semitic-speakers, and in this poetic passage, “
Amorite” should be given an expansive meaning of “native west Semitic
speakers: Amorites, Canaanites and Hebrews”.
XTYis xu-ti-ya, the most frequently-attested Hurrian name at Nuzi in the
Late Bronze Age. 92 different people at the Hurrian province of Nuzi bore
that name! Xu-ti means “to praise”, and -ya is a theophoric, which in a
Hurrian name implies “Teshup”. So the classic Hurrian name xu-ti-ya means “
Praise Teshup”. Far from my view of XTY/xu-ti-ya having been “refuted”,
as George Athas’s post implies, that is basically the view of leading
scholar Edward Lipinski:
“Ewri’s qualification H-XTY suggests that the man [‘Uriah the Hittite’
/XTY] was regarded as a foreigner, but one might surmise that XTY was his
proper name, viz. the frequent Hurrian name Xu-ti-ya.” “Itineraria Phoenicia”
(2004), p. 500.
The final Hebrew alphabetical yod/Y does double duty in these non-Semitic
names. On the one hand, it’s the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate
syllable, here in the form of -ya or -ia. But on the other hand, the
final yod/Y is also the generic west Semitic suffix that means “people”. So
XTY means “the Praise Teshup people” [where -Y first means “Teshup” in
Hurrian, and then also means “people” in Hebrew], that is, the Hurrians.
Please note that XTY has n-o-t-h-i-n-g whatsoever to do with the classic
Hittites from eastern Anatolia, who were referred to as “Hatti” in the
ancient world [and who were never in Canaan!]. “Hittites” is a modern
English word that is a KJV mis-transliteration of the Hebrew XTY; this
mis-transliteration created a modern word that has no equivalent in the
ancient
world. Rather, XTY/xu-ti-ya is a colorful Patriarchal nickname for the
Hurrians.
What Ezekiel 16: 3 is saying is what I pointed out in my last post: most
of the married couples in the Patriarchal narratives, including all three
Patriarchs, follow a very specific pattern. The husband, and all his
paternal ancestors, are native west Semitic speakers. The wife’s mother, by
contrast, is an ethnic Hurrian. Those are the people who, per Ezekiel 16: 3,
came to dominate Jerusalem and Canaan in due course: the Hebrews. “[T]hy
father was an Amorite [that is, a native west Semitic speaker], and thy
mother a [XTY/Hurrian].”
Not only is Ezekiel 16: 3 accurate Biblically, but it’s also accurate
historically as well. The key figure in Canaan who immediately pre-dates the
first Hebrews, and who overlaps with the first Hebrews, is the Amorite
princeling Milk-i-Ilu of the Ayalon Valley, just west of Jerusalem. His name
is
honored at Genesis 46: 17, in that one of Jacob’s descendants who moves to
Egypt with the Hebrews has been given the name Milk-i-Ilu: MLK -Y- )L.
[To make sure we know what’s going on, MLK -Y- )L is paired with the XBR
root of XBR-WN/xa-bu-ru-u-ne/“Hebron” at Genesis 46: 17.] Historical
Amorite princeling Milk-i-Ilu was an “Amorite”, even in the narrowest sense of
that word. His wife’s mother was a Hurrian who was married to the Hurrian
princeling Tagi, as we know from the Amarna Letters. Yet their firstborn
son, Yapaxu [whose name makes good sense in both west Semitic and Hurrian],
became the greatest threat to the first Hebrews. Yapaxu hated
tent-dwellers, and was a bona fide threat to drive the first Hebrews out of
their
beloved valley. By sharp contrast, the first Hebrews had been in confederate
relationship with the longtime ruler of the Ayalon Valley, Milk-i-Ilu, whose
Biblical nickname is “Mamre the Amorite” at Genesis 14: 13. Year 14,
referenced as being “the 14th year” at Genesis 14: 5, was the approximate
historical year when Milk-i-Ilu died and the first Hebrews now had to contend
with his tent dweller-hating firstborn son, Yapaxu. Thank goodness, Yapaxu’
s reign lasted less than one full year, so the Hebrews could remain in the
valley and prosper on a modest scale.
Thus I see Ezekiel as being accurate both as a one-sentence summary of the
Patriarchal narratives, and as a one-sentence summary of the traumatic
historical events that gave rise to the birth of the Hebrews as a coherent,
distinct, YHWH-loving people in Year 14. 7 out of 7 firstborn sons are
portrayed in the Patriarchal narratives as getting the shaft and properly so:
Haran, Lot, Ishmael, Esau, Reuben, Er, Manasseh. That reflects the
historical fact that firstborn son Yapaxu was a dire threat to the Hebrews’
very
existence in the year [Year 14] in which the Hebrews first came together as a
distinct people in Canaan, whereas Yapaxu’s younger brother was more like
their father Milk-i-Ilu and allied with the tent-dwellers [per Amarna Letter
EA 298].
If George Athas were right and my views have been “refuted”, with the
Patriarchal narratives being late as a written text and largely fictional,
then it would not be possible for virtually the entirety of the Patriarchal
narratives to match up so closely, down to the most minute details of names
and specific years, with what is historically attested in the Amarna
Letters.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
P.S. As to TMN( [mis-transliterated as “Timna”] at Genesis 36: 12, that
is ta-ma-ni Semiticized or ta-am-ni Semiticized. Ta-ma or ta-am is a
Hurrian root of the following Hurrian names: Ta-ma-a-a, Ta-a-ma-ku, and the
woman
’s name Ta-am-$i. -a-a-, -ku, -$i and -ni are all standard Hurrian
suffixes. The final alphabetical ayin/( is the old-style way of showing that a
Hurrian name has been Semiticized, as in BR( and BR$( at Genesis 14: 2. The
Semiticization of the name TMN( [“Timna”] means that this Hurrian woman
married a native west Semitic-speaking son of Esau and though merely a
concubine, threw in her lot with Esau’s native west Semitic-speaking
descendants.
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