Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

As noted in the first post on this thread, “Jacob-El” is an old Amorite name 
from the early 2nd millennium BCE.  Does that old Amorite name show up in the 
mid-15th century BCE on the Thutmosis III list as being a city name of a town 
in the Shephelah?  Scholars recognize items #104 and #105 as being Gezer and 
Rubutu, located in or near the Aijalon Valley.  Only two slots away, at item 
#102 on the Thutmosis III list, is another town in or near the Aijalon Valley 
in the northern Shephelah:  Jacob-El.
 
There are two versions of item #102 on the Thutmosis III list.  As can be 
examined later, the second version, which is longer, is likely a later 
version, 
and as such is likely to be the version that may be reflected in the Bible.  
But in this post we will look at the first version, the shorter, older 
version, 
which appears to be “Jacob-El”.
 
The first version of item #102 on the Thutmosis III list is:  Y(QBJR.
 
The first four letters are directly comparable to Biblical Hebrew.  Y(QB is 
the standard Biblical Hebrew spelling of the name “Jacob”.
 
The last two Egyptian letters may need a little explanation.  The J (an 
Egyptian single reed) is an all-purpose guttural sound, which has no exact 
equivalent in Biblical Hebrew.  A J is most frequently an aleph/) in Biblical 
Hebrew, 
but it can also come out as an ayin or a heth in Biblical Hebrew, which are 
the other two guttural sounds in Hebrew (and on some occasions it may be just 
a 
vowel indicator).  In this first, older version of item #102, the J probably 
has its most common function of representing an aleph/) in Biblical Hebrew.
 
An Egyptian R represents either a resh/R, or a lamed/L.  In a slight majority 
of cases on the Thutmosis III list, an R represents a lamed/L (not a resh/R). 
 In item #102, the R probably has its most common function of representing a 
lamed/L in Biblical Hebrew.
 
Accordingly, this older, shorter version of item #102 on the Thutmosis III 
list appears to be “Jacob-El”, with all 6 letters being identical to the way “
Jacob-El” would be rendered in Biblical Hebrew.  
 
We know that “Jacob-El” is an old Amorite name.  We also have begun to 
glimpse that most of the last 30 items, beginning with item #90, on the 
Thutmosis 
III list may represent places in or near the Shephelah, just west of hill 
country (fairly near Jerusalem and the city of Hebron, but in most all cases 
being 
just west of hill country). 
 
The logical conclusion is that in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE, 
the Amorites had a substantial presence in the northern Shephelah, especially 
in the Aijalon Valley.  That is why this town, which is probably located in 
or 
very near the Aijalon Valley, has this ancient Amorite name.
 
That further means that in the Bronze Age, the Aijalon Valley may likely have 
been associated with Amorites.  If so, then the Aijalon Valley was the  
o-n-l-y  place in southern Canaan that was historically associated with the 
Amorites, who historically were most prominent in northwest Canaan.  To the 
best of 
my knowledge, the Negev Desert was never associated with Amorites in secular 
history.  Thus a Biblical reference in Genesis to “Mamre” and “Amorite” might 
well suggest the Aijalon Valley, and would not be consistent, historically, 
with the city of Hebron or any other locale in the Negev Desert.
 
Scholars recognize that “Jacob-El” is item #102 on the Thutmosis III list, 
and that it is an old Amorite name, but scholars have failed to recognize the 
great significance of that fact.  Once one sees that most of the towns 
surrounding item #102 on the Thutmosis III list are located in the Shephelah, 
near or 
in the Aijalon Valley, one comes to see that in the Bronze Age, the Aijalon 
Valley was closely associated with the Amorites.  When the Patriarchal 
narratives repeatedly insist that the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is associated with 
“Mamre” 
or “Amorites”, that is a huge clue that the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is not the 
city of Hebron, which was never associated with Amorites in secular history, 
but rather is the Aijalon Valley, which is the only locale in southern Canaan 
that historically was closely associated with the Amorites in the Bronze Age.
 
But now we need to move on to the second question here.  If the Bible has 
near-blanket coverage of Late Bronze Age cities, towns and important villages 
in 
southern Canaan, as I believe it does, then where is this “Jacob-El” in the 
Bible?  We’ll have to look at the second, longer, later version of item #102 
on 
the Thutmosis III list.  And we may need to, as we did previously with 
Magaroth and Carmel and Halhul, be willing to look a few miles west of where 
scholars have unsuccessfully looked for the Biblical Hebrew version of the 
town of “
Jacob-El”.
 
If “Jacob-El” was a town important enough to be recorded on the Thutmosis 
III list as a city name in southern Canaan, it stands to reason that it 
should 
be referenced somewhere in the Bible.  The Hebrews knew more about cities in 
southern Canaan than did the Egyptians.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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