Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

1.  Kenneth Griefer wrote:  “Are you trying to prove that Carmel was located 
in a different place or just that it existed a long time earlier than in the 
story about David and Abigail?”
 
(a)  As to time period, I see the city of Carmel in southern Canaan as being 
in existence in the mid-15th century BCE, the mid-14th century BCE, and the 
10th century BCE.  We have already seen I Samuel refer to the city of Carmel 
in 
the 10th century BCE, and the Thutmosis III list apparently refer to the city 
of Carmel in the mid-15th century BCE.  In #2 below we will see this same 
city 
of Carmel play an important role in the well-documented secular history of 
the mid-14th century BCE.    It is my view that chapter 25 of I Samuel gives 
us 
accurate information about the city of Carmel.
 
(b)  As to location, we will see that based on evidence from the Late Bronze 
Age and the Iron Age, the city of Carmel is located on the northern edge of 
the Sorek Valley, just south of the Aijalon Valley and west of hill country.  
Professor Yigal Levin has not considered that location for Abigail’s Carmel, 
because there is no Arabic village in the common era with an Arabic name of 
KRML 
there.  There is an Arabic village in the common era 7 miles southeast of 
Hebron with such name, which is the traditional site of Abigail’s Carmel.  
But all 
the Biblical evidence, and all of the evidence from the secular history of 
the Late Bronze Age, shows the northern edge of the Sorek Valley as being the 
location of Abigail’s Carmel.
 
2.  The City of Carmel in the Mid-14th Century BCE
 
In considering the controversial city of Carmel in southern Canaan, as 
referred to six times in the Bible (including five references in chapter 25 
of I 
Samuel), the following question needs to be asked.  Are Carmel and 
Gath-Carmel 
and Ginti-Carmel and Ginti-kirmil all the same basic name for one and the 
same 
city?
 
Gath and Ginti are interchangeable as words that mean “winepress” (although, 
strictly speaking, they are not linguistic equivalents).  In the Bible, this 
word/name comes out as “Gath”/GT.  On the mid-15th century BCE Thutmosis III 
list, this same word/name comes out as “Ginti”/KNT [where Egyptian K can 
represent a gimel/G in Biblical Hebrew].
 
In the Late Bronze Age, it became trendy to add Gath/Ginti to city names, 
especially for cities in the Shephelah, which apparently were trying to 
market 
themselves to wealthy Egypt as being in “Wine Country”.  These cities were 
hoping to get into the lucrative business of selling wine to Egypt, as Amurru 
and 
Syria did.  Thus in the Bible, reflecting names created by Canaanites in the 
Late Bronze Age, we see Gath (meaning “winepress”), Gath-Hepher, Gath-Rimmon 
and Moresheth Gath.  And on the Thutmosis III list we see KNT JSN at item 
#44, 
KNT at item #63 and at item #70, and KNT + JT at item #93 (discussed below).  
In the Amarna Letters we see Gimtu (which likely is Biblical Gath, being Gath 
of the Philistines), Ginti (which is Gintikirmil), Gintikirmil (which as we 
will see in this post is the Judean town of Carmel, associated with David’s 
Abigail 400 years later), Gittipadalla, and Gittirimmunima (which is probably 
Biblical Gath-Rimmon), as well as Muhrastu, which may be Biblical 
Moresheth-Gath.
 
Y. Aharoni, at pp. 434-435 and 439 of “The Land of the Bible.  A Historical 
Geography” (1979), discusses five different cities named Gath, plus Gittaim 
and 
Moresheth-Gath.  One Gath is in the northern Shephelah, close to Gezer 
(Gittaim, Ras Abu Humeid);  this is probably item #63 on the Thutmosis III 
list.  
The most famous Gath is Gath of the Philistines, at Tel es-Safi in the 
southern 
Shephelah, which Aharoni and Anson Rainey see as being item #70 on the 
Thutmosis III list.  Moresheth-Gath is south of Tell es-Safi.  In my own 
opinion, we 
are seeing how the Shephelah tried to portray itself (though perhaps not very 
successfully) as being the new “Wine Country”.  Interestingly, scholars 
rarely venture a guess as to the identity of the Gath listed at item #93 on 
the 
Thutmosis III list (which I discussed in my previous post, and which as 
discussed 
below may be part of the name “Ginti-Kirmil”). 
 
Since Ginti (or Gath) was such a common add-on to a city name for towns in 
the Shephelah in the Late Bronze Age, it would seem natural for the 
Ginti-Kirmil 
in the Amarna Letters to be one and the same place as KRML/Carmel.  Moreover, 
everything that is said about Ginti-Kirmil in the Amarna Letters fits the 
supposition that it is Carmel, just west of hill country.  Abdi-Heba as the 
ruler 
of Jerusalem famously says that he is at war as far as Ginti-Kirmil.  Amarna 
Letter EA 288.  It would make sense for Jerusalem to be at war as far west as 
just west of hill country, near the Sorek and Aijalon Valleys.  By contrast, 
it would make no sense for Jerusalem to be at war as far northwest as Mt. 
Carmel, 75 long miles northwest of Jerusalem, though as we will see, that 
nevertheless is, believe it or not, the bizarre scholarly interpretation of 
Ginti-Kirmil.  We know that Gezer and Ginti-Carmel work together to get a 
friendly ruler 
installed at Rubutu.  Amarna Letter EA 289.  Since Gezer and Rubutu are 
located in the Aijalon Valley, it would make sense for Ginti-Kirmil to be 
Carmel, 
and to be located in the Sorek Valley, just south of the Aijalon Valley, as 
indicated by our previous look at item #96 on the Thutmosis III list.  And 
speaking of the Thutmosis III list, items #93-#96 should perhaps be read 
together.  
Then the first half of item #93 is Ginti (KNT), and this city name is 
finished 
at item #96, KRMN, so that together they are Ginti-Kirmil, or Abigail’s 
Carmel.  The items in between are not city names, but rather are descriptions 
of the 
topography near Carmel/Ginti-Kirmil.  The JT at the end of item #93 is 
aleph-tav/)T, a common word in Biblical Hebrew meaning “namely” or “near”.  
MQR-PT 
at item #94 is “water-well path” (based on common words known in Biblical 
Hebrew), and (YN at item #95 is of course “fountain”.  So items #93-#96, read 
together, are:  “Ginti-[namely, near water-well path, fountain] Carmel”.  The 
Egyptian scribe in Canaan was saying that there was plenty of water available 
at the Ginti-Kirmil/Carmel locale, in addition to the wadi-meadow in the 
Sorek 
Valley that is referenced by the Canaanite word JBR/)BL/abil at item #92, 
immediately before this elongated reference to Ginti-Carmel.  The abundant 
presence of water at Carmel was an important consideration (400 years later) 
for the 
3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats of Abigail’s first husband, referenced at I 
Samuel 25: 2.  The final editor of the Thutmosis III list in Egypt may not 
have 
known quite how to divide up these various Canaanite components into separate 
item numbers, but read together they make perfect sense. 
 
Note that if Abigail’s Carmel is located in the northeast quadrant of the 
enticing, but defenseless, Sorek Valley, then security would have been a 
major 
issue in the 10th century BCE, as the enemy Philistines controlled the 
western 
half of the Sorek Valley (and were a constant threat to take over the entire 
Sorek Valley, as far east as Keilah on the border of hill country, per I 
Samuel 
23: 1).  Whereas if Abigail’s Carmel was safely located 7 miles southeast of 
Hebron, in hill country far from the dangerous Philistines, security would be 
a 
minor concern.  The main point of chapter 25 of I Samuel is precisely to show 
that it was David’s “irregulars” who allowed rich men like Abigail’s first 
husband to have access to part of the wondrous Sorek Valley:
 
“But one of the young men told Abigail… ‘they [David’s irregulars] were a 
wall unto us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them 
keeping 
the sheep.’”   I Samuel 25: 14, 16  
 
The entire main point of chapter 25 of I Samuel is lost if Abigail’s Carmel 
is erroneously viewed as being in a safe locale 7 miles southeast of Hebron.  
Arabic names in the common era of Arabic villages should not be allowed to 
trump what the Bible says.  
 
Despite all of the evidence from the Amarna Letters, famed historian Anson 
Rainey nevertheless famously declares that Ginti-Kirmil as a city in southern 
Canaan did not exist!  He claims that all the references in the Amarna 
Letters 
to Ginti-Kirmil joining with Gezer to install a friendly ruler in Rubutu in 
the 
Aijalon Valley are to the far-away hometown of a man who operated exclusively 
in the Shephelah, but whose home base is nevertheless seen by Anson Rainey as 
being 75 miles to the northwest, at Mt. Carmel:
 
“According to an allusion in a Jerusalem letter (EA 289: 18-20), there is a 
town called Gath-carmel which belongs to Tagi and thus places him somewhere 
in 
the general area of Mount Carmel [!!!!], i.e. somewhere on the Plain of Acco. 
 
That reference does not necessarily mean that Gath-carmel is the seat of Tagi’
s rule but only that Gath-carmel is one of his towns….  Gath-carmel is 
certainly…near Mount Carmel.”  Anson Rainey, “The Sacred Bridge” (2006), at 
p. 83. 
 
But Gath-Carmel should logically be viewed, rather, as being Abigail’s Carmel 
of chapter 25 of I Samuel, on the northern edge of the Sorek Valley, instead 
of incongruously being viewed as being “near Mount Carmel”.  All of Tagi’s 
actions reported in the Amarna Letters take place in the Aijalon Valley, just 
west of hill country.  The reported actions by the ruler of Gath-Carmel take 
place nowhere near Mt. Carmel, but rather occur quite near the locale that 
chapter 25 of I Samuel and item #96 on the Thutmosis III list indicate as 
being the 
locale of the Biblical city of Carmel.  Note also the scientific fact that 
the 
clay that Tagi of Ginti-Carmel used to write his Amarna Letter tablets is 
found in abundance on the northern edge of the Sorek Valley, not at Mt. 
Carmel.
 
Chapter 25 of I Samuel, the Thutmosis III list, and the Amarna Letters all 
tell the same historical story.  Carmel/KRML (or Ginti-Kirmil) was a city 
located on the northern edge of the Sorek Valley, near the Aijalon Valley, a 
little 
west of hill country, in both the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age.  Though 
denied by essentially all scholars (who unfortunately choose to rely 
exclusively 
on the Arabic name in the common era of an Arabic village southeast of 
Hebron), the objective facts from the ancient world speak for themselves.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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