Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter Mattfeld" <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>]

Scholars have been bewildered by Genesis' statement that implies there is a
great city called Resen between Calah and Nineveh (Ge. 10:11-12). They
suspect that some kind of corruption of the original text has taken place
because there is no such place attested in Assyrian cuneiform texts.

Another unknown city is Rehoboth-ir, which appears in the list between
Nineveh and Calah (Ge. 10:11).

Ancient Hebrew did not use vowels, only consonants, so Resen whould be
rendered "r-s-n" while Rehoboth-ir would be "r-b-t-r" ( I realize I am
grossly over-simplifying all this).

I have the following  admittedly "highly speculative proposals" to make on
the identification of these two mysterious places. I have noted a place
called in Assyrian Sa-resani believed to be in the vicinity of Calah (cf.
p.248, #4.7.22. Sa-resani, Zadok). He mentions a rab-sa-resani, the chief
eunuch Offical and an administrative center called a Sa-ris. Could Sa-resani
be an allusion to Resen ?

Another place tentatively identified as in the Calah region is
Har-bat-ra-hi-i (cf. p. 249, #4.7.4.1.11, Zadok) Could this be Rehoboth-ir ?

For the Nineveh area Zadok mentions a place within Nineveh itself called Res
Ninua (Res meaning a high point; cf. p.252, #4.13.0.212, Res Ninua, Zadok).
Was Res Ninua slurred into Resen ?

Another possibility is that seeing as how Calah was the capital of Assyria
from the 9th to the 8th centuries BCE and that Nineveh succeeded it as the
capital till it fell in 612, perhaps there was an Assyrian term for this
"general area," meaning this was the "Chief" (Resen = resani ?) or Leader of
Assyria, rather like Hebrew Rosh. Resen would then suggest an "appelative or
title of honor" bestowed upon the two capital cities as the "head" of the
nation ?

Zadok dates the appearance of these names to the 9th-7th centuries BCE,
suggesting a non-Mosiac setting of Genesis being created in the 15th century
BCE, if the above "speculations" prove acceptable.

Source cited:
Ran Zadok, "The Ethno-Linguistic Character of the Jezireh and Adjacent
Regions in the 9th-7th centuries (Assyria Proper vs. Periphery)," in Mario
Liverani, Editor, Neo-Assyrian Geography, University of Rome, 1995, pp.
219-282.

All the best,

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelburg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany