Biblical Hebrew Forum

["uri hurwitz" <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

Dear Reinhard,
    
    The advantage of the inscriptions is that they provide a "snapshot" of
the language as it was used, sometimes in haste, in contradistinction to
the edited and often polished text of the HB.

     Still, the examples you mentioned show, in part, an amazing
similarity to the text.

     For instance, the first sentence of Yabneh Yam is almost a verbatim
parallel of 1 Sam 26:19.

     In the lines you quoted from Arad 24:17-19 the phrase "lh*yd/bkm" is
again a verbatim parallel of Deut 32:46. You are right in that the phrase
"h'n$ym.'t.'y$/*" is difficult.

     But let us remember, just as the inscriptions include many personal
names not found in the HB, so it would not be unexpected to find an
occasional usage unattested here. And, as you said, it may be a kind of
military clipped form of delivery.

     By mentioning Northern material, I thought perhaps you meant usages
such as "$t" or "yw"; there are no narrative texts so far from the North,
unless one wants to include the poem from the famous Bed and Breakfast
Kuntilat Al-Ajrud, but that's a different matter. It is a fun subject as
would be the precise definition SBH!

             Uri