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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] What Does the Name "Hebron" Mean?
  • Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:00:46 EDT


What Does the Name “Hebron” Mean?

We previously saw on this thread that (i) “Hebron” means “the Binding
Friendship place”, a-n-d that (ii) “Hebron” means “the Hebrew place”. But
now
let’s consider a more controversial third pun that is possibly embodied in
the
name “Hebron”.

3. “Hebron” = The Arbe Place

Controversial Amarna Letter EA 281 (a short letter from a princeling who
probably lived southwest of Jerusalem) may include a reference to “[H]arabu”.

(Based on that one short Amarna Letter, the locale of “Harabu” or “Arabu”
could be anywhere in central or southern Canaan.) With it being unclear
whether
or not there is an “H” there, “Arabu” in Akkadian cuneiform certainly looks
like “Arbe”, as in Kiriath [city of] Arbe. Arbe is the town near which
Abraham settles after splitting with Lot. Genesis 23: 2; 35: 27 In each of
the
only two references to Kiriath Arbe in Genesis, “Arbe” is paired with “Hebron”
. The city of Arbe is at the Hebron place. Hebron is “the Arbe place”.

(As we are beginning to suspect, the Hebron place in the Patriarchal
narratives may have no connection whatsoever to the city of Hebron located 20
miles
south of Jerusalem, a city which did not exist in the Late Bronze Age.
Rather,
the name “Hebron” may have been chosen/created by the author of the
Patriarchal narratives in order to make the three apt puns that we are
discussing on
this thread. The name of the c-i-t-y near which Abraham settles is Arbe
[Kiriath Arbe, where “Kiriath” means “city”], not Hebron.)

Early translators of the Amarna Letters saw that reference to “[H]arabu” as
possibly meaning “Hebron”. Note that the two key consonants -- resh/R and
bet/B -- are inverted on that analysis. Even if we reject the earlier
interpretation of that Amarna Letter (as the more recent translator Wm. Moran
does), we
still should consider the possibility of the inversion of these two key
consonants (resh/R and bet/B). Inversions of this general type are
documented on
several occasions in the ancient world. Here, this inversion may be a
deliberate pun by the author of the Patriarchal narratives. The letters B-R
are
inverted (in this third-level, non-obvious pun) to become R-B. On that
inversion
analysis:

“Hebron” = XBRWN = H + RB [inverted] + WN = “the” [H] “Arbe” [RB, per
inversion] “place” [-WN].

In the Patriarchal narratives, Hebron certainly is “the Arbe place”, because
the city of Kiriath Arbe is twice stated to be at the place (valley?, per
Genesis 37: 14) called “Hebron”. Genesis 23: 2; 35: 27 “Kiriath Arbe”
means “
the R-B city”. Hebron is the place (valley) where “the R-B city” (Arbe) is
located.

As to the linguistic tactic of inverting BR to get RB, consider the famous
divine blessing at Genesis 22: 17 that Abraham receives immediately after the
binding incident. (A mere eight verses later is the first mention of Kiriath
Arbe in the text. This blessing functions as a bridge to (i) our
introduction
to Arbe, and (ii) our re-introduction to Hebron.) This famous divine
blessing
that Abraham receives at this awkward, delicate moment, which has
particularly
felicitous phrasing, starts out with two B-R words (“bless”/BaRak), and then
what immediately follows is the inverse: two R-B words (“multiply”/RaBah):
“‘…in blessing [a B-R word] I will bless [a B-R word] thee, and in
multiplying [an R-B word] I will multiply [an R-B word]…’” First B-R, B-R,
then R-B,
R-B. Likewise, we have first been told (once, at Genesis 13: 18) that
Abraham
will sojourn at a B-R place (HeBRon). But a mere eight verses after this
blessing, it turns out that the name of the actual city at that B-R/HeBRon
place
is the inverse: the R-B city/aRBe/Kiriath aRBe (historical
aRaBu/RaBbah/RuButu). That sentence (Genesis 23: 2) states that Arbe (an R-B
word) is at Hebron
(a B-R word), just as Genesis 22: 17 had contrasted two B-R words with two
following R-B words. The linguistic point here is that B-R words (like
“Hebron”
) can pair nicely with R-B words (like “Arbe”), in sophisticated Biblical
Hebrew wordplay.

A town in Canaan called “Rabbah” is referenced at Joshua 15: 60. “Rubutu”
is referenced at Amarna Letters EA 289: 13 and 290: 11. Scholars generally
agree that such Rabbah and Rubutu are the same historical town, which was
probably located in or near the Aijalon Valley. (The T at the end of
“Rubutu” is
simply an optional west Semitic suffix that means “town of”. The three U’s
in
“Rubutu” are typical Akkadian cuneiform, which never match the vowel sounds
in Biblical Hebrew.) Note that the prosthetic aleph at the beginning of
“Arbe”
is optional and is routinely dropped in other words that have R-B as their
root. It is thus not surprising that historically, the town name “Arabu”
[Arbe] became “Rabbah”/“Rubu(tu)” (dropping the prosthetic aleph at the
beginning). “aRaBu”, “aRBe”, “RaBbah” and “RuBu(tu)” all feature R-B as
their
root. They are four variations of essentially the same name for the same
historical town, located 17½ miles west of Beth-el, in the Aijalon Valley.

By inverting B-R to become R-B, “Hebron” can be seen to be a pun that means,
on one level, “the Arbe place”.

In a similar way, “Hebron” can be viewed as being a virtual anagram of “Arbe”
. The suffix “-on” in “Hebr-on” can be disregarded for this purpose (as it
is not part of the root), leaving us with “Hebr”. “Hebr” consists of one
guttural (a heth [X]), and the consonants bet [B] and resh [R]. “Arbe”
consists of two gutturals (an aleph [)] at the beginning and an ayin [(] at
the
end), plus resh [R] and bet [B]. Thus both of these words -- “Hebr(on)” and
“Arbe
” -- consist of gutturals and resh/R and bet/B, in varying combinations.
Which is just to say that the “Hebr-“ in “Hebr-on” is a virtual anagram of
“Arbe
”.

The point is that the names “Hebron” and “Arbe” are suggestive of each
other, rather than being entirely unrelated. Instead of that phenomenon
being a “
coincidence”, it more likely reflects the fact that the author of the
Patriarchal narratives chose/created the name “Hebron” precisely because the
name “
Hebron” is, on one level, redolent of the historical Late Bronze Age city
named “
Arbe”.

Thus the name “Hebron” brilliantly embodies three different puns, each of
which tells us something important about the Hebron place. First, “Hebron” =

the Binding Friendship place”, where Abraham has a “binding friendship” with
certain Amorites, who in due course help Abraham rescue his nephew Lot.
Second, “Hebron” = “the Hebrew place”, being the first place where the word “
Hebrew” is used, and being the place where the first Hebrews in Genesis
sojourn
longer than any other place. And finally, “Hebron” is “the Arbe place”, as
the name of the c-i-t-y at that place is “Arbe”.

We can determine that “Hebron” itself in the Patriarchal narratives is a
valley (per Genesis 37: 14), not a city. “Hebron” in Genesis is in fact very
likely the Aijalon Valley, located 17½ miles west of Beth-el. (Cf. Genesis
13:
3, 8-11, 18 as to where Abraham should logically go upon separating from Lot
at Beth-el, since Lot for his part goes 17½ miles e-a-s-t of Beth-el to the
Jordan River Valley.) The Aijalon Valley, in addition to having the ideal
location to be the place where Abraham would be expected to be portrayed as
pitching his tent upon separating from Lot, is famous for its magnificent
groves of
oak trees/terebinths. Genesis 13: 18 And as emphasized in this post, in the
Late Bronze Age one of the most prominent cities in the Aijalon Valley was
Arbe/Arabu/Rabbah/Rubutu, all of which town names are based on the root R-B.
Thus
the name “Hebron” is telling us the locale of the Hebron place, as “Hebron”
(a B-R name) is redolent of “Arbe” (an R-B name), which was a prominent town
in the Aijalon Valley in the Late Bronze Age historical time period of the
Patriarchal Age.

There was no city of Hebron located 20 miles south of Jerusalem in existence
in the Late Bronze Age. Abraham’s “Hebron” is a Patriarchal name for an
important v-a-l-l-e-y in Canaan (17½ miles west of Beth-el), rather than
being
the later city of Hebron.

If we can understand the meaning of the name “Hebron”, we can understand the
Patriarchal narratives.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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