Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Pere Porta is right that GLL in part means “rolling”.  But GLL is never 
applied to the rolling hill country of southern Canaan.  No, GLL is almost 
always 
found in a northern greater Canaan context.  Same with GL.
 
Isaac Fried has given us many nice GL words.  Now let’s see what we can do 
with those GL words.
 
1.  From the 1st millennium BCE to the present, the Sea of Galilee in 
northern Canaan has been surrounded by three vast tracts of land, all three 
of whose 
names begin with GLL or GL:  Galilee/GLL to the west, Golan/the Golan 
Height/GL to the northeast, and Gilead/GL to the southeast.  Northern greater 
Canaan 
is GLL/GL country.
 
2.  Before the southern Hebrews came into being, in the mid-14th century BCE, 
this was GRR/GR country.  That’s GRR/Gerar at Genesis 20: 1, and GR/Gar/Garu 
in the Amarna Letters.  GRR is but an earlier version of GLL.
 
3.  And before there were any Hebrews at all, in the mid-15th century BCE, 
conquering Egyptian pharaoh Thutmosis III picked up, from the west 
Semitic-speaking northern Canaanite locals, the word KRR, which applies to 
this very same 
territory (or some part thereof) in the general vicinity of the Sea of 
Galilee. 
 In the days of the “Napoleon of Egypt”, this part of northern greater 
Canaan was KRR country.
 
4.  So from the mid-15th century BCE to the present, greater northern Canaan, 
in the general vicinity of the Sea of Galilee, has either been KRR country, 
or GRR/GR country, or GLL/GL country.
 
Who said things aren’t eternal in the Holy Land?
 
5.  The new news I am trying to bring to the b-Hebrew list is that 
GLL/Galilee did not come out of thin air, though it is conventionally 
described as being 
a primary root meaning “rolling”.  Here is where GLL originally came from.  
Northern greater Canaan, before the Hebrews, was KRR, and then became GRR, 
and 
only then later became GLL.  The “missing link” between KRR on the Thutmosis 
III list, and GLL/Galilee, is GRR/Gerar.  To my mind, it all makes perfect 
sense:  linguistically, historically, and textually.
 
6.  According to the “Baker Encyclopedia of Bible Places” (1995) at pp. 137 
and 142, each of “Gerar”/GRR and “Galilee”/GLL has the exact same underlying 
meaning:  “circle”.  That further supports my claimed link between GRR/Gerar 
and GLL/Galilee.
 
Though the northern and northwest border of Galilee fluctuated over time, 
originally it started at Laish/Dan at the foot of Mt. Hermon, and went west 
all 
the way straight across to Sur/“Tyre” on the coast (along Isaiah’s “way of 
the sea” at Isaiah 9: 1).  Thus originally Galilee/GLL (like GRR/Gerar before 
it) included what we would today call southernmost Lebanon. Today’s narrow 
boundaries of Galilee are basically a product of Roman times.  But if one 
adds in 
Golan and Gilead, the GLL/GL country is still a large swath of land in 
northern 
greater Canaan.
 
7.  As I see it, greater northern Canaan started out as KRR country, then was 
GRR/GR country in the Late Bronze Age in the time of the first Hebrews, and 
has ended up now for the last several millennia as being GLL/GL country.  
That’
s the linguistic story, and it’s also telling us the historical story of the 
first Hebrews, straight out of the Patriarchal narratives.
 
If one knows the linguistic origin of the word “Galilee”/GLL (namely GRR/“
Gerar”), one knows when, and where, the first Hebrews came from.
 
Jim Stinehart 
Evanston, Illinois




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