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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] The Name "Chedorlaomer" in Ugaritic, Part I
  • Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:55:36 EST


The Name “Chedorlaomer” in Ugaritic, Part I

We previously saw that the name “Chedorlaomer”/KDR+L+AoMR can easily be
broken down into three Hebrew words: KDR, and L, and AoMR. That strongly
suggests that Chedorlaomer may be conceptualized by the author of chapter 14
of
Genesis as being a west Semitic-speaking person. For if Chedorlaomer was
supposed
to be a king from the far-off non-Semitic predecessor of Persia, as is
usually
argued, it would be quite peculiar for the name of such a non-Semitic person
to work so easily and effortlessly as being composed of three regular Hebrew
words, without a single change in any spelling being needed for any of those
three Hebrew words. In this connection, note that the names “Arioch” and
“Tidal
” cannot be analyzed as being composed of Hebrew words. “Arioch” is a
princely Hurrian name, and “Tidal” is the Hebrew version of the Hittite
kingly
name “Tudhaliya”. Likewise, the name “Phicol” in chapters 21 and 26 of
Genesis
cannot be analyzed as being composed of Hebrew words, as it comes from the
southwestern coast of Anatolia, indicating that Abimelech’s military
commander
Phicol is a foreign mercenary. By contrast, the name “Abimelech” is a
classic
west Semitic name, indicating that princeling ruler Abimelech, unlike the
foreign mercenary Phicol, is a native west Semitic speaker. With every other
name in the Patriarchal narratives seeming to make complete sense as
accurately
indicating whether or not a person is a native west Semitic speaker, why
would
we think that the name “Chedorlaomer”, which so easily and effortlessly can
be analyzed as being composed of three Hebrew words (with no spelling changes
whatsoever being needed), was intended to portray a non-Semitic king from the
far-off non-Semitic predecessor of Persia?

If in addition to being a west Semitic-speaking person, Chedorlaomer is
viewed by the author of chapter 14 of Genesis as being from Ugarit, then we
would
expect the name “Chedorlaomer” to work in Ugaritic as well. Conversely, if
the name “Chedorlaomer” works perfectly in both Hebrew and Ugaritic, that
would
cast grave doubt on the traditional view that Chedorlaomer is being presented
in the text as being a (fictional) ruler of the non-Semitic predecessor of
Persia, Hatamtu, located east of the far-off lower Euphrates River. So it is
quite important to determine whether “Chedorlaomer” works as being a
combination of three words attested in Ugaritic.

As we shall now see, each Hebrew word in the name "Chedorlaomer" is also a
Ugaritic word. And just as the Hebrew words aptly provide a profoundly
negative
view of Chedorlaomer, so also do the Ugaritic words.

K-D-R/kdr

As previously noted, the beginning of "Chedorlaomer" is K-D-R/kaf-dalet-resh.

K-D-R/kdr is a prominent word in Ugaritic, and is also prominent as being the
first element in several Ugaritic names. K-D-R/kdr has a wide range of
meanings in Ugaritic. Unfortunately, scholars do not agree as to the precise
range
of meanings of kdr in Ugaritic. But as we shall see, it appears that the
broad range of meanings of kdr in Ugaritic largely, if not completely,
parallels
the broad range of meanings of the Hebrew word K-D-R. The one meaning of
K-D-R/kdr in Ugaritic as to which scholars do agree is that kdr in Ugaritic
sometimes means “ball”. Though somewhat more controversial, it is often
asserted
that kdr in Ugaritic sometimes means "vulture". Kdr in Ugaritic also is
something connected to a sacrifice, and it is even associated in some way
with the
"destruction of mankind". (K-D-U-R means “ball” in Hebrew, though such word
does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. We saw that one key Hebrew meaning of
K-D-R is, per BDB, “shoot or rush down (of hawk, star, etc.; also of an
attacking force)”, and such a concept could also apply to a vulture.) In
Ugaritic,
though perhaps only post-dating the 14th century BCE, and apparently unlike
Hebrew, kdr can also mean "basket" or “trough”, per Akkadian kudurru. These
various aspects of the prominent Ugaritic word K-D-R/kdr are seen in the
following
two scholarly comments:

(i) “Line 3 and 10) Dijkstra (1986), 121, and Dietrich and Loretz (1988),
189, translate kdr ‘ball’ apparently from Hebrew d k and Aramaic d k. …An
Ugaritic word with this spelling occurs in KTU 1.50:10 (some part of a
sacrifice), KTU 4.275:8 (context unclear)…. Gordon, 1965, 418, #1201, took
this word
to mean ‘vulture’. Also, see kdrn in KTU 4.33:22, 4.55:26, 4.350:1 (also the
personal name bn kdr). Note also kdrt in KTU 1.3 II:9 where the context
seems
to support something like 'balls' as a translation of the Ugaritic, but other
interpretations could well fit this context. I suggest, alternatively, that
in our [very late] text the word could well come from Akkadian kudurru
meaning
'basket'.” Duane E. Smith, 2005, “A School Text: KTU 5.22”, at
_http://www.telecomtally.com/blog/ugarit/KTU5.22.pdf_
(http://www.telecomtally.com/blog/ugarit/KTU5.22.pdf) .

(ii) "kdr is in the mythological text, KTU 1.3, tablet II, line 9.
Here is the context:
tsmt . adm . sat . shpsh
thth . k kdrt . ri[sh] (=head)
Notice the phrase 'tsmt adm', the destruction of mankind….
KTU 1.7 also has the word.
RS 1.023 has the word.
It is a name in RS 10.109
'bn . kdrn'"


Personal E-mail to me from Steve Rives on 12/14/06.

As noted above, kdr in Ugaritic can mean “ball”. A ball bouncing or rolling
haphazardly could be connected to “tumult”, or “tumult of war”, which is a
key concept in the Biblical Hebrew word K-I-D-U-R at Job 15: 24. K-D-R/kdr
in
Ugaritic is often thought to mean “vulture”. A vulture could easily reflect
the dark side of war. The connection of K-D-R/kdr in Ugaritic to "the
destruction of mankind" seems to complete the picture as to at least one set
of
meanings of this Ugaritic word. In both languages, Hebrew and Ugaritic,
K-D-R/kdr
can be associated with dark, turbulent warfare. (We must also remember that
the Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives likely did not know Ugaritic
very well. Even if the people of Ugarit themselves did not usually use kdr
in
the figurative sense of meaning “dark tumult of war”, the Hebrew author of
chapter 14 of Genesis might logically have thought that Ugaritic had this
same
figurative meaning as in Hebrew, since the literal meanings of kdr in the two
languages seem quite similar. It should be no surprise if the dark Hebrew
overtones of kdr overshadow the arguably more neutral Ugaritic overtones of
kdr in
a nickname created by a Hebrew author for a hated foreign ruler.)

The prominence of the word kdr in Ugaritic cannot be denied, and kdr was
often used as the beginning part of a person’s name in Ugaritic. Note that
there
is no Hebrew name in the Bible that starts with KDR, so the name
“Chedorlaomer”
works well for a foreign, west Semitic-speaking ruler from Ugarit. By
creating the nickname "Chedorlaomer" that begins with K-D-R, the Hebrew
author has
neatly imported a Ugaritic flavor into this name. K-D-R/kdr may possibly
have
had roughly similar meanings in the two languages (though this contention is
not as clear in Ugaritic as it is in Hebrew): a negative image of “dark,
turbulent warfare”.

In the next post, we will look at L and Ao-M-R as the remaining Ugaritic
words in “Chedorlaomer”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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  • [b-hebrew] The Name "Chedorlaomer" in Ugaritic, Part I, JimStinehart, 01/31/2008

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