Isaac Fried:
You wrote: “I ignore everything you say about ‘Ugaritic’ as I have no way
of verifying its veracity.”
Fair enough. But then let’s discuss the topic I mentioned in passing in my
previous post: what about Chedorlaomer’s title? Is (YLM the expected
Hebrew rendering of any non-biblical rendering of the country-name Elam?
Before we go the scholarly route and dismiss the “four kings against five” as
being non-historical because no king of Elam ever came to the Dead Sea to
snuff out a 12-year-long rebellion, shouldn’t we slow ourselves down to
ask, in the first instance, if Chedorlaomer is in fact said to be the “King of
Elam” at Genesis 14: 1?
A. (YLM Is N-o-t “Elam”
Scholars follow the traditional, non-scholarly view that (YLM at Genesis
14: 1 is referring to the country of Elam, the forerunner of modern Iran
east of Mesopotamia. Before getting to the linguistic analysis of (YLM, note
that it makes no historical sense to think of a ruler from far-off Elam east
of Mesopotamia coming to the Dead Sea to put down a 12-year-old rebellion
by vassals of his. With there being no historical sense to that
traditional analysis [which is nevertheless embraced by most scholars], does
(YLM
even match linguistically to Elam?
The fact of the matter is that there is no equivalent to a yod/Y in any of
the secular historical spellings of Elam outside of the Bible, whether
Elamite, Sumerian, Babylonian or otherwise. (YLM is simply not a linguistic
match to any historical spelling of the country-name “Elam”. No such
historical spelling features either a vowel dipthong at the beginning, or
alternatively a consonantal yod/Y. The Babylonians called the country to
their
east Elamtu or KUR elammatum, or they used the Sumerian logogram NIM meaning
“highlands”. Assyrians called that country Elamtu. The Elamites
themselves called their own country Hatamti. The Akkadian common word “elum”
means “high”, and is a popular etymology for the Akkadian name elamtu. “
Elamtu” as an east Semitic country name of southwestern Iran near the Zagros
Mountains would be expected to be rendered in Biblical Hebrew as (LMT. But
instead of (LMT, what’s there in the received text of Genesis 14: 1 is
(YLM. It’s by no means a linguistic match. [It appears that the rest of the
Bible picked up this Genesis 14: 1 name and spelling. Perhaps the rest of
the Bible considered (YLM to be, inexplicably, the Hebrew way of spelling
(LMT?] Please note that the modern English rendering, “Elam”, comes from
Biblical nomenclature, not from any non-biblical source. “Elamtu” or “
Hatamti” would likely be the English version of this country’s name if
Biblical
nomenclature were ignored. [Recall in this connection that the modern
English rendering of “Hittite” likewise (i) comes from Biblical
nomenclature, not from non-biblical sources, and (ii) reflects a complete
misunderstanding of what XTY means in the Patriarchal narratives, where in fact
XTY
refers to the Hurrians by the Hurrian-based Patriarchal nickname Xu-ti-ya,
having nothing whatsoever to do with the Hittites.]
It’s hard to believe that (YLM is a non-west Semitic foreign loanword
[allegedly being the non-west Semitic proper name of the country east of
southern Mesopotamia], when so many Hebrews and Jews have (YLM as their own
name.
BDB lists 8 examples of that. But note that all 8 such examples are
post-exilic, whereas chapter 14 of Genesis, by stark contrast, is part of the
oldest part of the Bible. Note also that not too many Biblical Hebrew
common words start with (Y. The one very frequently-attested Hebrew common
word
that starts with (Y is (YN. The Assyrian equivalent there is ênu with a
circumflex over the E, which may be why “spring [of water]” is spelled
with (Y with a yod/Y in Hebrew, whereas the Assyrian equivalent of Elam by
contrast is elamtu with no circumflex over the E, so that one would not expect
a yod/Y in the Hebrew rendering of elamtu.
Finally, Genesis 14: 1-11 never says that this attacking ruler, or any
other attacking ruler, came from the “east”. Thus despite that fact that
scholars almost unanimously assert the traditional non-scholarly view that
(YLM
is “Elam” at Genesis 14: 1, it most assuredly is not! There’s no
historical match, no linguistic match, and no textual match. Indeed, there’s
no
match whatsoever of any kind on any level. Furthermore, not a single one
of the four attacking rulers comes from the east; rather, all four come
from north of Canaan, not from east or northeast of Canaan. University
scholars can s-a-y that (YLM means “Elam” and then try to dismiss the text
as
allegedly being manifestly non-historical, but in fact the Biblical author
was saying nothing about Elam, nor would any of his contemporary audience
have thought that he was saying anything about far-off, totally irrelevant
Elam east of Mesopotamia.
B. (YLM = (LM
In the original version of the text, (YLM was almost certainly just (LM,
without the yod/Y. As such, in the original text, the defective spelling (LM
in this proper name would not have been distinguishable, out of context,
from the word (WLM that is used eight times as a Hebrew common word in the
Patriarchal narratives, including in the immediately preceding chapter at
Genesis 13: 5. In defective spelling, (WLM, meaning “eternity”, was likely
(LM, with the vav/W being a plene spelling element that would not be there
in the original defective spelling. Indeed, the Ugaritic spelling of the
west Semitic word for “eternity” is simply ‘lm [with no yod].
Subject to only a handful of exceptions, the spelling of Hebrew
c-o-m-m-o-n words in the Patriarchal narratives is indistinguishable from the
spelling of Hebrew common words in II Samuel. That’s because the same person,
or
the same group of scribes, in the late 7th century BCE Jerusalem of King
Josiah both (i) composed and wrote down II Samuel, and (ii) transformed the
vast bulk of the truly ancient Patriarchal narratives from the original
cuneiform Late Bronze Age clay tablets into alphabetical Hebrew. Thus there’s
no surprise whatsoever to see the plene spelling of (LM as (WLM at Genesis
13: 5, which represents standard Biblical Hebrew spelling circa late 7th
century BCE Jerusalem. But night and day different from that phenomenon
regarding Hebrew c-o-m-m-o-n words is the fact that the truly ancient
spellings of non-Hebrew p-r-o-p-e-r names in the cuneiform original of the
Patriarchal narratives were not updated to 7th century BCE form. Rather, they
were generally recorded verbatim, letter-for-letter in alphabetical
Hebrew, except that defective spelling was used [so that most vowels were not
reflected by a Hebrew letter]. Non-Hebrew proper names in the Patriarchal
narratives do not have plene spelling, but rather have the original defective
spelling, whereas by sharp contrast Biblical Hebrew common words in the
Patriarchal narratives often feature plene spelling. [Since cuneiform could
not distinguish one guttural from another, naturally there were some mistakes
in handling the gutturals in ancient non-Hebrew proper names in the
cuneiform original version of the Patriarchal narratives, but that’s not the
problem here.]
In my view, several centuries later a post-exilic do-gooder editor decided
that the title MLK (LM, which was the original version of Chedorlaomer’s
title, was too magnificent and god-like to be a suitable title for
Chedorlaomer, who clearly is viewed negatively in the Bible. (LM in a proper
name
implied (WLM, and MLK (WLM seemed far too grand a title for disliked
Chedorlaomer. So under the guise of “clarifying” the text by merely adding
plene
spelling [but with other non-Hebrew proper names in the Patriarchal
narratives in fact not having plene spelling], a later editor took it upon
himself
to add in a yod/Y after the first letter in (LM, thereby producing the
(YLM that we see today in the received text. It’s hard to know what (YLM
meant, but it’s easy to see that (YLM deftly acted to prevent Chedorlaomer’s
title from being viewed as being (LM, implying (WLM.
Virtually all scholars see (WLM as being a noun that is derived from the
verb stem (LM. If (YLM were viewed as being a common noun with a west
Semitic etymology [as opposed to being a foreign loanword], then (YLM as well
could be viewed as being a noun that is derived from the verb stem (LM. All
three of these words would then have had the identical defective spelling:
(LM. It might be noted that Strong’s goes this route and specifically
sees (YLM as deriving from (LM. The reason why Strong’s etymology is a
minority view is not because it wouldn’t be easy to derive (YLM as a noun from
the verb (LM linguistically if (YLM were a west Semitic word or name, but
rather is because most scholars have preferred to see (YLM as a non-west
Semitic loanword, being the foreign name of a foreign country, Elam. But as
noted above, historically “Elam” was never spelled (YLM, as no historical
spelling of that country-name features either a vowel dipthong or
alternatively a consonantal yod/Y.
The original text of Genesis 14: 1 had MLK (LM. If I may be permitted to
mention Ugaritic again, that original title is the well-known kingly
reference, mlk ‘lm, that was used exclusively at Ugarit. The literal meaning
is “
king eternal”, but at Ugarit mlk ‘lm was used with the following specific
meaning: “all the kings of Ugarit, past, present and future”. “
Chedorlaomer” is the king of Ugarit in Year 13 [per Genesis 14: 4], on the
west
coast of Syria north of Lebanon [not e-a-s-t of Canaan!]. Chedorlaomer has
nothing whatsoever to do with far-off, irrelevant Elam.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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