Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

What Is “Enaim” at Genesis 38: 14, 21?
 
Where exactly was Judah when he got tricked into impregnating his disguised 
daughter-in-law Tamar at Eynym/“Enaim”?  Is Eynym/“Enaim” at Genesis 38: 14, 
21 the fictional name of a fictional town that is fictionally located (by J, 
of JEPD, according to scholars) southwest of Beth-el (in southern Canaan)?  
Or, 
on the contrary, is Eynym/“Enaim” the historical name of an historical town 
in Late Bronze Age northern Canaan (of which J would have known nothing)?  
Let’
s take a look at the objective facts.
 
In trying to locate an historical Eynym/“Enaim”, we start by noting that the 
last place where Judah was, before going off on his own, of which the 
geographical location is certain, was Dothan.  Genesis 37: 17  Both in 
secular 
history and in chapter 37 of Genesis, Dothan is located north of Shechem 
(well north 
of the later state of Judah, where the J source in JEPD lived).
 
Dothan is located just south of Lower Galilee.  So let’s first look for Eynym/
“Enaim” a little north of Dothan, in Lower Galilee (rather than southwest of 
Shechem, which is where scholars traditionally place the fictional locale of 
a fictional Eynym/“Enaim”).  
 
Another clue is that the text tells us that Judah was going “up” 
(ayin-lamed-he) (Genesis 38: 12) to Timnah, when Judah passed by 
Eynym/“Enaim” (where 
Judah interacts with a disguised Tamar).  That suggests that Timnah may be 
“up” 
in the hill country of eastern Lower Galilee (west of the Sea of Galilee), at 
a fairly high elevation, so that Judah would then be said to go “up” to 
Timnah.  With Eynym/“Enaim” being on the way to Timnah, and Eynym/“Enaim” 
presumably being located within 10 miles or so south or southeast of Timnah, 
Eynym/“
Enaim” should either be in hill country itself, or immediately adjacent to 
hill country (which would be the case if Eynym/“Enaim” is located very close 
to 
the Sea of Galilee).
 
Moreover, since Tamar successfully disguises herself as a prostitute at Eynym/
“Enaim”, we might expect Eynym/“Enaim” to be in a geographical locale that 
has a “resort”-type feel, that could be a suitable place for prostitutes to 
ply their trade.  In eastern Lower Galilee, that could suggest a location in 
the narrow swath of land between the hill country to the west and the Sea of 
Galilee to the east.  If so, then Timnah might in turn be expected to be 
located 
about 8 miles or so northwest of Eynym/“Enaim”, with Timnah being in high 
altitude hill country, west of the Sea of Galilee.
 
As to the historical time period, many aspects of the Patriarchal narratives 
are redolent of the Late Bronze Age.  So the very first place we should look 
for an historical Eynym/“Enaim”, in my own (controversial) view, is in, or 
immediately east of, the hill country of eastern Lower Galilee in the Late 
Bronze 
Age, perhaps about 25 miles or so northeast of Dothan.
 
That would be historical Yanuamma!  The Biblical name Eynym/“Enaim” at 
Genesis 38: 14 is quite similar to the names “en-Naam” and “Yanuamma”, a 
place 
which is located just southwest of the Sea of Galilee (about 25 miles 
northeast 
of Dothan).  En-Naam is probably “Yanuamma” in the Akkadian cuneiform of the 
Amarna Letters.  As William Moran states in his famous index to geographical 
sites in the Amarna Letters:  “Yanuamma, probably Tel en-Naam, southwest of 
the 
Sea of Galilee, [Amarna Letter EA] 197: 8”. 
 
Amarna Letter EA 197, cited by Wm. Moran above, from the mid-14th century BCE 
in the Late Bronze Age, appears to place Yanuamma somewhere between Adar 
(alternatively rendered as Adura or Adiru) and Kumidu.  Adar is probably the 
“Edar”
 at Genesis 35: 21 (though the first letter in the spellings differs;  the 
second vowel sound is not recorded;  any final vowel sound would be a case 
ending that would not be present in Biblical Hebrew).  At any rate, 
historically 
Adar was located in central Lower Galilee, just south of Megiddo, 30 miles 
southwest of the Sea of Galilee (nowhere near Bethlehem of Judea, but not too 
far 
from the other Bethlehem in ancient Canaan:  Bethlehem of Galilee).  Kumidu 
is 
an Egyptian garrison located well north of the Sea of Galilee.  This may 
suggest a location a short distance southwest of the Sea of Galilee for 
Yanuamma, 
with Yanuamma then being located between Adar and Kumidu, per Wm. Moran’s 
location of Yanuamma.
 
For the exact location of the modern site of Tel en-Naam, which is 
alternatively spelled Tel Yin’am, and which may well be 
Yanuamma/Eynym/“Enaim”, see p. 
182 of Adrian Curtis, “Oxford Bible Atlas” (2007), Oxford University Press, 
Oxford.  The map there shows Tel en-Naam/Tel Yin’am as being a few miles 
southwest of the Sea of Galilee, between the hill country to the west and the 
Sea of 
Galilee to the east, 25 miles northeast of Dothan.  Note that linguistically, 
“en-Naam” seems very close to Eynym and Enaim, and “Yin’am” seems very 
close to Yanuamma.  Moreover, the apparent differences between these two sets 
of 
words are in part merely differences in English transliterations.  En-Naam, 
Yin’
am, Yanuamma, Eynym and Enaim are all close linguistically, even though the 
spellings differ somewhat.  All five names feature the same key four 
elements:  
vowel sound + N + vowel sound + M.  Even in the English transliterations, you 
cannot get much closer than En-Naam vs. Enaim, or Yin’am vs. Yanuamma, or 
en-Naam/Yin’am vs. Eynym.  It is likely that all five of these names are 
slightly 
varying spellings of the same name of the same place located just southwest 
of the Sea of Galilee, namely Biblical Eynym/“Enaim”, where Judah interacted 
with his disguised daughter-in-law, Tamar. 
 
Given its scenic location, with the hill country to the west and the Sea of 
Galilee to the east, Eynym/“Enaim” was a natural spot for being a low-rent 
Biblical “resort”.  As such, it was an ideal spot where prostitutes and cult 
prostitutes could operate.
 
The spellings of the names here are quite similar, especially once one 
realizes that Akkadian cuneiform spellings of vowel-type sounds are rarely, 
if ever, 
close matches to Biblical Hebrew spellings.  “Ya” is a double vowel-type 
sound that could be the double vowel ayin-yod.  N is nun/N.  The “ua” is a 
vowel-type sound (or dual vowel) that could be yod (with this yod itself 
being 
traditionally transliterated as being a dual vowel sound, and even in 
unpointed 
text this appears as a dual vowel in the version of this word at Genesis 42: 
24).  The “mm” is mem/M.  The final “a” is simply a case ending in Akkadian 
cuneiform, which is routinely dropped in Biblical Hebrew.  So the historical 
name 
“Yanuamma” from the mid-14th century BCE looks very much like 
ayin-yod-nun-yod-mem/(YNYM/Eynym/“Enaim”. 
 
If we are willing to look in Late Bronze Age eastern Lower Galilee, an 
apparent historical match to Eynym/“Enaim”, namely historical Yanuamma, is 
right 
there.  This name certainly appears to be in Amarna Letter EA 197, since 
Yanuamma/en-Naam/Yin’am/Eynym/“Enaim” likely are all the same name for the 
same 
place.  Both in Genesis and in that Amarna Letter, a geographical location 
just 
southwest of the Sea of Galilee for this town makes perfect sense.  
 
Whether this apparent match is an actual match may end up turning largely on 
the question of whether there is an historical “Timnah” located fairly nearby 
(less than 10 miles northwest of Eynym, “up” in the hill country of eastern 
Lower Galilee).  Genesis 38: 12-18 tells us that Judah slept with Tamar at 
Eynym/“Enaim” on Judah’s way “up” to Timnah.  So if we can find an historical 
“
Timnah” in the Late Bronze Age that was located less than 10 miles northwest 
of historical Eynym/“Enaim”/Yanuamma (perhaps 8 miles northwest, as we will 
see), we’re in business.
 
Eynym/“Enaim” is where it’s at.  If we can understand Eynym/“Enaim”, we can 
understand the Patriarchal narratives.  Conversely, unless we understand the 
historical geography of the Patriarchal narratives, we will not understand 
who 
composed the Patriarchal narratives, during which time period, or with what 
motivation.  The J source in JEPD, who lived in the state of Judah in the 1st 
millennium BCE, would not have placed Jacob’s son Judah, the namesake of the 
later state of Judah (in southern Canaan), in historical 
Yanuamma/Eynym/“Enaim” 
in eastern Lower Galilee, in  n-o-r-t-h-e-r-n  Canaan, that’s for sure.  As 
we are seeing on this thread, Eynym/“Enaim” is much more important than 
scholars have heretofore realized.
 
“Enaim” = Eynym = en-Naam = Yin’am = Yanuamma, in northern Canaan.  That’s 
what the objective evidence from secular history strongly suggests.  And that 
in turn strongly suggests that J, living in the south Canaan state of Judah, 
played no role in the composition of chapter 38 of Genesis, which portrays 
Jacob
’s son Judah as living in Lower Galilee in northern Canaan, nowhere near the 
later state of Judah.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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