Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 08.16 09/02/00 +1100, George Athas wrote:
>Although I beg to differ with NPL's disassociation of Lab'aya and Shechem, 

Dear George,

When you consider that there is in fact only one of the Amarna texts that
mentions KUR.$a-ak-mi (EA 289) and that doesn't indicate that Lab'aya was
its king -- only that he gave it to the enemy --, it is really only
speculation (which I also have been guilty of for convenience sake) that
places Lab'aya as ruler of Shechem.

At the same time it needs to be stressed that it is in no way certain that
KUR.$a-ak-mi is in fact the town of Shechem. As you know, KUR indicates
"land", not "city" (URU as in URU.sa-lim) as would be expected, so we
cannot be sure that the writer is even referring to a town. One analyst of
the term has negated the identification of Shechem completely, relating it
to $kmh and yielding "land of the sycamore".

In short, there is no association between Lab'aya and Shechem other than
his giving of KUR.$a-ak-mi to the enemy.


Cheers,


Ian