Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yaakov:
The spies were not the same as the princes. Joshua was the only one named
before Numbers 13, and then not as a prince, but as Moses' personal
assistant.

That the names were different from the princes never bothered me, because I
expected that the princes would be considered too important to go out on a
dangerous mission where there was a chance that they would not return.
However, Moses so expected their return that he had his personal assistant
named as one of the spies.

Caleb was sort of a fluke. He was not even Jewish. Therefore, he was
expendable. Yet his devotion to God got him and his family to receive God's
blessings the same as if he were a Jew, and his nephew was named as the
first of the saviors in the book of Judges.

It never crossed my mind that these names might be code names.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 1:07 AM, Yaakov Stein <yaakov_s AT rad.com> wrote:

> The names of the spies in Numbers 13
> (with the exception of the well-known Yehoshua and Caleb)
> seem to be somewhat different than names encountered before
> (e.g. the names of the princes earlier in Numbers).
> They are mostly shorter, often end in Y (rather than )L or )B or $DY),
> and certainly more cryptic.
>
> Two, in particular, hint at "secretness"  SODY and STUR.
>
> Could these names be code names, like 007 ?
> Or are these simply names of the younger generation ?
>
> Yaakov (J) Stein