Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk>]

Yitzhak wrote:
 Jacob's function as
a tribal name complicates this issue).



JCR: But it's even more complicated than that. I say this
because it becomes possible to make a tribal usage of
just about every name you can think of. A few examples
of the top of my head.
Abraham is promised that his seed will be become many
and that he will be the father of many nations. To
talk about Abraham's seed or rather Abraham's children
is to speak of many nations.
Then we have Jacob/Isreal as already mentioned.
Then we have the 12 tribes of Isreal. We also have Edom.
In the olden days to be a Jew meant to be one of Judah's
decendants. Now while it is possible to argue a strictly
tribal connotation to all of these examples what about
the final example (dare I say it?) 'the son of David'?
Was David the name of a commonly known tribe? Was there
ever a nation called David? Was there even a geographic
location called David?