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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Joseph's Egyptian Name
  • Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 09:43:29 EST


1. In trying to figure out the meaning of the name of Joseph’s Egyptian
wife, I think that a knowledge of Biblical Hebrew is as important as a
knowledge
of ancient Egyptian.

The name of Joseph’s Egyptian wife is:

aleph-samekh-nun-tav

As we will see in a moment, this is probably:

aleph-samekh + nun-tav

In Joseph’s own Egyptian name, which we examined earlier on this thread, the
last two letters of the first part of his Egyptian name are nun-tav. As
discussed in that earlier post, most everyone sees that as meaning nTr in
Egyptian,
which is the generic Egyptian word for “god”.

Since those identical two letters, nun-tav, also end the name of Joseph’s
Egyptian wife, it stands to reason that they have the identical meaning:
nTr,
meaning “god” in Egyptian.

It’s the first two Hebrew letters in the name of Joseph’s Egyptian wife that
have been difficult to analyze. Here is my own view, which differs from
other analyses I have seen.

As I see it, a majority of Hebrew words that begin with aleph-samekh follow
the pattern of the aleph being its own separate syllable, “ah”, and then the
samekh starts a new separate syllable. Either an express or an implied
vowel-type sound follows that samekh, and often as not that vowel-type sound
is “-ah”
. So in my view, aleph-samekh at the beginning of a word implies A + S(a).
A + S(a) in Hebrew could easily be aSA in Egyptian. In Egyptian, aSA is a
verb meaning “be abundant”.

On my analysis, aleph-samekh + nun-tav means aSA + nTr. That literally means
“be abundant”/aSA, “god”/nTr. The clear meaning would then be “may god
bless her with abundance”, that is, “(may she be) fertile by god’s blessing”.

It seems like a fine woman’s name in Egyptian to me.

Most analysts say that aleph-samekh means “belonging to” or “she belongs to”
, but it is hard for me to see that. One analysis says that aleph-samekh
means “holy”, but I don’t see that either.

To me, the most straightforward analysis is to see the samekh here as
implying a following “-ah” vowel-type sound, and then everything works
perfectly.
Aleph is A. Samekh is SA, with the implied A vowel sound. Nun-tav is nTr,
meaning “god”. (I see no reason to try to view any goddess as being
referenced
here.)

The English transliteration “Asenath” is not too bad as to the first half of
the name. I see this name as being aSA-nTr, meaning “may she be fertile by
god’s blessing”. Her priestly father understandably hoped that his daughter
would in due course be able to bear many strong sons, and he was asking for a
divine blessing in that regard.

2. Let me now briefly mention the fourth and last Egyptian name: that of
Joseph’s Egyptian master. That name ends with PR/peh-resh. As such, I see
it
as being completely different than the name of Joseph’s Egyptian priestly
father-in-law (which has an ayin at the end), despite the view by almost all
analysts that these two names are the same. In fact, these two names are
very
different. Joseph’s master has nothing to do with religion, and rather is
the
captain of Pharaoh’s bodyguards at Pharaoh’s palace. In Egyptian, PR means
“house
”. It is the root of PR-aA, which means “house great”, or “palace”, and
hence can mean “pharaoh”. Joseph’s Egyptian master is “devoted to”/Pa-di +
the “house”/PR (of Pharaoh). That makes perfect sense to me, especially
since
PR is the Egyptian root of both “palace” and “Pharaoh”.

By contrast, when one adds an ayin at the end of such name, that turns it
into a completely different name altogether. With the ayin at the end, the
last
part of the name of Joseph’s Egyptian priestly father-in-law is peh +
resh-ayin, that is, “the”/peh + “Ra”/resh-ayin. (By the way, there is one
isolated
attested case of pa-ra in the mid-1st millennium BCE, but by that late time
period that phrase probably had the innocuous meaning of “the sun”, rather
than
being a fitting ancient name for a priest of the sun-god Ra from On.)

To summarize, I see the name of Joseph’s Egyptian master as being peh-vav +
tet-yod + peh-resh, whereas the name of Joseph’s priestly father-in-law is
peh-vav + tet-yod + peh + resh-ayin. The first name means “devoted to”
[literally “the gift of”]/peh-vav + tet-yod/pa-di + “house”/peh-resh/pr, that
is,
Pharaoh’s palace. That is a fitting name for a non-religious captain of
Pharaoh’
s bodyguards at Pharaoh’s palace. (The tet in Hebrew sounds quite similar to
a D in Egyptian. Yet in order to avoid PT/peh-tet, which could be mis-read
as being the famous Egyptian god Ptah, the Hebrew author wisely added a
filler
vowel-type sound after the peh: a vav. So peh-vav + tet-yod is pa-di in
Egyptian.) The second name is totally different, meaning “devoted to”
[literally
“the gift of”]/peh-vav + tet-yod/pa-di + “the”/peh/pa + “Ra”/resh-ayin/Ra,
implying “The One and Only God”. That is a fitting monotheistic name for a
priest of On only in the mid-14th century BCE.

3. In conclusion, let me state that I myself think that the author of the
Patriarchal narratives did a superb job in setting forth authentic Egyptian
names from the mid-2nd millennium BCE, in all four of these cases. In my
opinion,
each one of these four Egyptian names makes perfect sense in that historical
context, despite these names’ unwarranted reputation for being somewhat
impenetrable.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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  • [b-hebrew] Joseph's Egyptian Name, JimStinehart, 03/03/2008

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