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  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] code names in Numbers 13
  • Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:13:40 +0300

I had always thought that Ya'akov's second suggestion was the most likely - the spies' short names show that they were part of the younger generation, although I did suspect that there was something more there. The names Sodi and Satur ("secret" and "hidden") do seem apt for spies, so Ya'akov may be right in looking further.

Karl's comment that Caleb "was not even Jewish", and therefore "expendable", has four basic faults:

1. "Jewish" in this context is a huge anachronism. "Israelite" would be more fitting. "Jewish" usually refers to the religious group(s) that developed during the Second Temple period (or the Exile), most of whom, of course, were descended from the tribe/kingdom of Judah.

2. "Expendable"? If he was such a loyal Yahwist that he even became a Judge, he was certainly not "expendable". And why would you think that in the Israelite thought of the time, a non-Israelite Yahwist was "worth" less than an Israelite?

3. Besides, you can't have it both ways: you claim that Moses sent his personal assistant Joshua because he "so expected their return". In other words, he had full confidence that the God who commanded him to send the spies would not alow them to be harmed. So he would not expect Caleb to be harmed either - therefore his being "expendable" is really not an issue.

4. While you are correct that there is a scholarly theory that the Calebites were not originally part of the tribe of Judah and sort of "joined on" and were eventually incorporated into the tribal genealogies, that could only have happened after the tribe had settled in Canaan, and thus has nothing to to with this story. Again, you can't have it both ways: you either look at the Bible as a literary construction which is not neccesarily "historical", in which case the spy story has to be seen within its own context - and there is NO indication IN THE STORY that Caleb was anything but Israelite, OR you consider the Bible to be "historical", in which case you have no real criterion for accepting the details of this story, while assuming that the genealogies of Caleb are litearary constructions. The spy narrative and the genealogies are different genres, composed by different people at different times for diferent reasons, and "reading" one into the other is problematic at best.


Yigal Levin




----- Original Message ----- From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 6:54 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] code names in Numbers 13


Yaakov:
The spies were not the same as the princes. Joshua was the only one named
before Numbers 13, and then not as a prince, but as Moses' personal
assistant.

That the names were different from the princes never bothered me, because I
expected that the princes would be considered too important to go out on a
dangerous mission where there was a chance that they would not return.
However, Moses so expected their return that he had his personal assistant
named as one of the spies.

Caleb was sort of a fluke. He was not even Jewish. Therefore, he was
expendable. Yet his devotion to God got him and his family to receive God's
blessings the same as if he were a Jew, and his nephew was named as the
first of the saviors in the book of Judges.

It never crossed my mind that these names might be code names.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 1:07 AM, Yaakov Stein <yaakov_s AT rad.com> wrote:

The names of the spies in Numbers 13
(with the exception of the well-known Yehoshua and Caleb)
seem to be somewhat different than names encountered before
(e.g. the names of the princes earlier in Numbers).
They are mostly shorter, often end in Y (rather than )L or )B or $DY),
and certainly more cryptic.

Two, in particular, hint at "secretness" SODY and STUR.

Could these names be code names, like 007 ?
Or are these simply names of the younger generation ?

Yaakov (J) Stein
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