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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: George.Athas AT moore.edu.au, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] $XR = black?
  • Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:35:24 EDT


Karl:

You wrote: “[T]he context [of $XR at Isaiah 23: 3] is that of Tyre where
there
is no need to consider Egypt as a possible understanding of this verse.”

1. No lexicon sees $XR as referring to Tyre. But then again, you
specifically asserted in your post that all the lexicons may be wrong as to
the meaning
of $XR. So let’s check it out.

2. I do not see why $XR (or &XR) would ever have been used to reference
Tyre/Sur, based on #3 below. There has never been a heth/X in the name for
Tyre
(unless a glottalized S might be &X, but I do not think that’s the case). No
one else in the Bible refers to Tyre with a heth/X. So I do not see how
Isaiah
could be referring to Tyre as $XR or &XR. Three other Biblical authors refer
to Egypt as $XWR or $YXWR, so it makes sense (per the conventional view) for
Isaiah to refer to Egypt using the defective, and perhaps abbreviated,
spelling of $XR. Secondly, if the word at Isaiah 23: 3 is $XR, not &XR, as
seems
very likely, I do not think that the Bible or any other source ever refers to
Tyre using a shin/$. The first letter in the name of Tyre/Sur might be a
glottalized S, an S sound coupled with a light sound deep in the throat
(which might
be sin/& or sin-aleph/&) or sin-ayin/&( [but never a shin/$]). But usually
the first letter in the name of Tyre/Sur comes out as a ssade/C (which
becomes a
T in Greek, and hence in Latin and English, as explained below). A ssade is
similar in sound to &/sin, but not to $/shin. In Aramaic, a ssade is tied to
an ayin. But there’s no shin/$/Sh or heth/X in sight here. So both the
$/shin and the X/heth in $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 seem incompatible to me as a
name for
Tyre/Sur. (See also #4 below, which looks at the context of Isaiah 23: 3.)

3. Original and Later Forms of the Name for Tyre

Here is a wonderful blog, explaining in a single paragraph how “Suur” became
the name for the troublesome island city-state of Tyre. (If the characters
do not print out right, which is likely, please go directly to the website
referenced below for a better version of this paragraph. I have put in a few
comments of my own in brackets.)

“Mountains of Lebanon – some etymologies

Lebanon's cities and villages, tragically now in the news, have some
interesting etymologies. I always used to wonder about the different names:
why is the
same city called Tyre in English, but Ṣuur in Arabic? [where the first
letter is a ssade/C] or Byblos in English, and Jubayl in Arabic? The reasons
illustrate the sheer length of these towns' history, and the time depth of
Greece's
contact with them.

Sometime before the characteristic sound shifts of Proto-Canaanite happened
- perhaps 1200 BC or so? - Tyre would have been known by a Semitic term
meaning something like "peak" or "crag": θ'uur-u. [Note: A meaning of
“peak” or “
crag” suggests CWR in Hebrew. In the Bible, we usually see the shortened
form CR, instead of CWR, for “Tyre”. Note the presence of a ssade/C, which
is
an emphatic S/&/sin sound, and the notable absence of both a shin/$ and a
heth/X.] This was borrowed by the early Greeks as tur-os > tyros (when u got
fronted to y) > Latin Tyrus > English Tyre. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, that
glottalised θ
', perhaps unsurprisingly, was among the first sounds to disappear; in
Canaanite (that is, Phoenician, Hebrew, and assorted minor languages of the
area),
it became s' [glottalized S] (or ṣ – [ssade] it's hard to be certain whether
the Canaanite emphatics were glottalised or pharyngealised). Case endings
also
vanished. This gave the Phoenician name: S'uur (or Ṣuur). It was adopted
without change into Aramaic [with the Aramaic name for Tyre being CWR], and
thence Arabic, as the region's languages shifted over time. The regular
cognate of
Proto-Semitic θ'uur-u in Arabic would have been ظور đ̣uur; this root is
unattested as far as I know. However, in Aramaic *θ' became ṭ, and from this
source the root entered pre-Arabic as طور ṭuur "mountain", a rare but
well-attested term used in the Quran, notably for Mount Sinai. (In Ugaritic,
freakishly enough, *θ' became γ (gh), and γuur- "mountain" is a well-attested
Ugaritic word. In Ugaritic, incidentally, Tyre was actually called ṣuur-; so
either
my etymology here is wrong, which is possible, or Ugaritic borrowed the name
after it had already changed *θ' to γ.)”

_http://lughat.blogspot.com/2006/07/mountains-of-lebanon-some-etymologies.html
_
(http://lughat.blogspot.com/2006/07/mountains-of-lebanon-some-etymologies.html)


“This blog is written at irregular intervals by Lameen Souag, currently
studying linguistics at SOAS.”

4. Going back now to the context of Isaiah 23: 3, the Hebrew word Y)R, in
the singular, usually refers to the Nile River (even though the plural form
can
refer to rivers generally, not necessarily having anything to do with Egypt).

At Isaiah 23: 3, $XR is shortly followed by Y)R. This phrase is generally
rendered as something like the following (taken from JPS1917):

“And on great waters the seed of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, was her
[Tyre’s] revenue;”

If Y)R means the Nile River in Egypt, then the context is strongly suggesting
that $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 is referring to Egypt.

$XR means “black”. At Isaiah 23: 3, $XR means “Black”. The Egyptians
referred to their own country as “Black”, which comes out in Egyptian as
Kemet.
What could be more straightforward than that? Isaiah is referring to Egypt,
perhaps a bit poetically, as “Black”, using one of the Hebrew words for
“black”
, which is $XR.

Western scholars of the Bible deny that, because they cannot stand the
thought that the Bible might occasionally reference Egypt as “Black”, being
an
overtly positive reference to the fertile, “black” soil along the Nile River
in
Egypt, and being the Egyptian way of referring to Egypt. But that’s the way
it
is. We should not let HALOT tell us that $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 is not a Hebrew
word, but rather is an Egyptian phrase meaning “pond of Horus”. Nor does
your suggestion that $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 means “Tyre” make sense either. The
name “Tyre”/Sur has never had a heth/X, and has never had a shin/$ either,
much less the shin-heth/$X combination we see in $XR at Isaiah 23: 3.

Why fight the text, and the obvious explanation of the text? $XR means “black
”, and at Isaiah 23: 3, $XR means “Black”, referring to Egypt/Kemet, where
Kemet means “Black”.

Moreover, consider now the precise context of Isaiah 23: 3. Isaiah is saying
that arrogant Tyre will no longer be able to get filthy rich off of bounteous
Egypt. Tyre is the one being excoriated here, not Egypt. This is the only
time in the Book of Isaiah when it makes sense for Isaiah to use a poetic
name
for Egypt that emphasizes Egypt’s bounty: “Black”, focusing on the fact that
the source of Egypt’s great wealth was the fertile “black” earth along the
Nile River. Elsewhere in Isaiah, when Isaiah is excoriating Egypt, Isaiah
sensibly does not use this poetic, overtly positive name for Egypt, which
emphasizes that Egypt is bounteous. But $XR/“Black” is the perfect name for
Isaiah
to use for Egypt in the particular context here, where Tyre is being told
that
Tyre will no longer be getting filthy rich off of bounteous Egypt.

At Isaiah 23: 3:

$XR = “Black” = Egypt

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

**************Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner for $10 or
less. (http://food.aol.com/frugal-feasts?ncid=emlcntusfood00000001)




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