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  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Hebrew Meanings of Biblical Names
  • Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2012 15:15:45 -0400 (EDT)


Hebrew Meanings of Biblical Names

The name of Abraham’s father is spelled TRX, traditionally transliterated as
“Terah”. In my view Terah is portrayed as being a native west Semitic
speaker, in which case his name TRX should make sense in Hebrew.

One of Terah’s signature characteristics is that he “wanders” and “journeys”.
We first meet Terah in Ur in southern Mesopotamia, but then he soon ends up
in XRN in northern Mesopotamia, where he has “wandered” or “journeyed”.
Although my own view of why Terah makes this journey differs from the
traditional view, perhaps we could all agree that one key role of Terah in
the Patriarchal narratives is “to journey”.

Does Terah’s name, TRX, mean “you journey”? Is it a shortened version of
T)RX?

There is a Hebrew verb )RX [see for example Job 34: 8] that means “to go, to
journey, to wander, to take a long caravan trip”. “You journey” or “you
wander” would be T)RX. For a name, the full-form T)RX could perhaps be
shortened to just TRX, meaning “You wander, journey, take a long caravan
trip”. [As to why TRX might have been preferred to T)RX for this name, Prof.
Gordon J. Wenham at “Genesis 1-15” (1987), p. 252 points out that some form
of TRX is attested as a place name in northern Mesopotamia, in the general
vicinity of Harran. Thus by using TRX as an abbreviated spelling of T)RX,
the name TRX could also recall the geographical locale of northern
Mesopotamia, where Terah lives out his long life. But TRX as such
geographical place name probably is not a west Semitic name, so it cannot
function as the Hebrew meaning of the name of the father of west Semitic
native speaker Abraham.] Since one of Terah’s key characteristics is that he
makes a long “journey” from Ur to XRN, and since I see Terah as being a
native west Semitic speaker, it would make sense for Terah’s name in
Hebrew/west Semitic to mean “you journey”, with TRX being a play on [that is,
an abbreviated version of] T)RX.

By contrast, the traditional analysis of the name “Terah”/TRX tries to tie it
to the moon or a moon god. The Hebrew word for “moon” is YRX, and there was
a Canaanite moon god with the same name, YRX. But the first letter of the
name “Terah”/TRX is tav/T, not yod/Y. At one time it was thought that Ugarit
attested a moon god named TRX, but that view has now been largely abandoned:
“Although some scholars argued that Terah occurred as a divine name in the
Canaanite texts from Ras Shamra [Ugarit], most now agree that there is no
evidence of a god trx at Ugarit.” Victor P. Hamilton, “The Book of Genesis:
Chapters 1-17” (1990), Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, p. 363. Although it is
true that both Ur and Harran were centers of worship of moon gods,
nevertheless the Patriarchal narratives never mention the moon or any moon
god regarding Abraham’s father Terah [or regarding any of Terah’s descendants
who remain at XRN]. Moreover, the traditional linguistic analysis regarding
“moon” seems untenable. Concerning 3-letter consonantal west Semitic roots,
where the differing consonants are not related to each other (TRX vs. YRX),
it seems to me that the fact that 2 out of 3 letters match means nothing.

I see the Hebrew meaning of the name TRX as being T)RX: “You Wander”. I do
not see the Hebrew meaning of the name TRX as having anything to do with
YRX/“moon”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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