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  • From: Laurent Pinchard <ougaritique AT yahoo.fr>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] question B HEBREW
  • Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:30:01 +0000 (GMT)

dear Sirs,
 
I would like to create a list on the subject "Ex 32,9 missing in LXX" and
with the corresponding question I have i.e. in Ex 32,9 LXX the verse is
missing whilst the MT specifies correclty wayomer yhwh el mosheh rayty et
ha'm hazeh wehineh 'm-kesheh-oref hou = and the LORD said unto Moses, I have
seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people. Does this mean
this an addition to the original text or has LXX deliberately omitted this
verse (if so, why). I am looking for reference papers/bibliography on this.
 
thanks

laurent



>From JimStinehart AT aol.com Wed Jan 21 10:58:10 2009
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Subject: [b-hebrew] Jacob-El
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Karl wrote: “The name found in the Bible is simply Y(QB, which is the
imperfective grammatical form of the verb "to be crooked" or "to deal
crookedly" as
in being less than honest. A derivative of the same root refers to the ankle,
the permanently crooked part of the leg.”

As we will now see, the negative meaning of Y(QB (“Jacob”), which Karl
properly points out, may well have played a role in why the city name
“Jacob-El”
was changed slightly by the Canaanite citizens of that town in the Shephelah.

As we saw in my previous posts, version #1 of item #102 on the Thutmosis III
list is the city name Y(QBJR, which is the equivalent of Y(QB-)L in Biblical
Hebrew, or “Jacob-El”, being an old Amorite name from the first half of the
2nd millennium BCE. Karl has stated that "Jacob-El", being an old Amorite
name,
should “Therefore not [be] part of this discussion, namely B-Hebrew.” But
the b-hebrew list is the perfect place to try to figure out why Biblical
scholars have been unable to find “Jacob-El” as a geographical place name in
the
Bible. Because “Jacob-El” was an o-l-d Amorite name, based on an o-l-d
Amorite religious expression, it is likely that by the time we get to the
Thutmosis III list, the city name “Jacob-El” seemed hopelessly old-fashioned,
rather
than being part of the “new Shephelah”, which as discussed below was trying
to market itself to wealthy Egypt as being part of a new Wine Country. And
with the “Jacob”/Y(QB part of the city name now sounding like the negative
word
“crooked”, the time was ripe for a modification of this out-of-date city
name. These factors that Karl is properly mentioning in fact likely played
an
important role in the modification of the old name “Jacob-El” that has caused
scholars to miss this fascinating name as a geographical place name in the
Bible. Finally, on two separate occasions Karl has insisted that the Bible
does
not have near-blanket coverage of names of cities, towns and villages in
southern Canaan. But certainly the Hebrews knew a lot more about cities,
towns and
villages in southern Canaan than the Egyptians did! If it was an important
enough place in southern Canaan for an Egyptian scribe to write down its
name,
then in my view we should expect to be able to find that city name in the
Bible. The Book of Joshua alone sets forth literally hundreds of city names
in
southern Canaan.

Because cities whose names appear shortly before and after Jacob-El on the
Thutmosis III list (which is item #102 on such list) are located in the
Shephelah, just west of hill country, it is likely that a town originally
named “
Jacob-El” was located in the northern Shephelah in the Late Bronze Age, not
too far
from Jerusalem and the city of Hebron, a few miles west of hill country.

The first key to finding the Biblical version of Jacob-El is to look at the
second, longer, later version of this city name at item #102 on the Thutmosis
III list. It is this later version of this city name that is likely to be
picked up in the Bible. The second version of item #102 on the Thutmosis III
list
is: Y(QBJMR.

The only explicit difference from the first version of this city name (which
is shorter and probably older) is the addition of a mem/M as the next to last
consonant. But that difference makes all the difference.

It is likely that in the mid-15th century BCE, when the Thutmosis III list
was compiled, the people of this city were in the process of deliberately
slightly changing the pronunciation, and slightly changing the spelling, of
the name
of their town. The normal pronunciation of Y(QB, as three syllables, sounded
uncomfortably like “crooked” (one meaning of the famous Biblical Hebrew name
“Jacob”, as appropriately pointed out by Karl). The townspeople may not
have liked that negative implication, which was one reason to simplify the
pronunciation of this city name. Moreover, we saw in a previous thread that
at this
time, many towns in this area were trying to market the Shephelah as being “
Wine Country”, in the hopes of getting a share of the lucrative business of
selling wine to wealthy Egypt. At least three cities in the Shephelah seem
to
have added “Gath” to their names about this time, with “Gath”/GT meaning “
winepress”. The people of Jacob-El, however, had a different way of trying
to
position their town as being in Wine Country. They decided to glide over,
rather
than pronounce, the ayin near the beginning of their town’s name, and they
also changed the ending of their town’s name, in effect treating the ending
of
their town’s name as if it were a mere suffix, knowing that suffixes in town
names often changed from time to time.

As we will see when we get to the Biblical Hebrew equivalent name, it appears
that the yod-ayin/Y( at the beginning of this town’s name was no longer
pronounced as yod-ayin, but rather was simply pronounced as yod/Y. Now the
first
part of the town’s name no longer sounded like the negative word “crooked”,
but rather was pronounced YQB (with the ayin in effect being treated as a
silent
letter), with YQB meaning “winepress”. Thus by slightly simplifying the
pronunciation of the first part of their town’s name, the townspeople neatly
hoped to position their town in the Shephelah as being in the new Wine
Country.

As to the suffix of this city name, there had always been a question about
the guttural sound near the end of this town’s name, which the Egyptians
recorded as the ambiguous guttural sound J. This guttural sound was now
treated as
corresponding to a Biblical Hebrew ayin (rather than a Biblical Hebrew aleph,
as in the older version of this town name). The addition of the mem/M in the
new, longer spelling of the town’s name created the common word (M, meaning “
people” or “nation”. With the pronunciation now being YQB-(M, the city name
now meant “Winepress People”. It is hard to imagine a better name than “
Winepress People” for a town trying to portray itself to wealthy Egypt as
being in
the heart of the new Wine Country of the Shephelah.

(If, on the other hand, the ambiguous guttural sound remained an aleph/), the
aleph-mem/)M would mean “mother”, in which case the town name would mean “
Winepress Mother”. It is also possible that JM could be an archaic plural
form,
so that the town name would mean “Winepresses”. The final R, which probably
always was a lamed/L, rather than a resh/R, was now viewed as being a mere
suffix. Such suffix might be a theophoric, or perhaps could now be viewed as
being a diminutive. In either case, such a suffix would be optional, so it
likely may not be present in the Biblical Hebrew rendering of this city name.)

By making the above slight changes in pronunciation and spelling, the
underlying meaning of this town’s name was completely changed, deliberately,
by the
townspeople. Instead of continuing to do homage to an old Amorite religious
expression, which was probably way out of date by then anyway, and rather
than
sounding, infelicitously, like the negative word “crooked” (the name “Jacob”
in Biblical Hebrew), the new town name proudly announced that it was part of
the new Wine Country of the Shephelah. The new pronunciation of the town
name
effectively came out as being: YQB + (M.

YQB means “winepress” in Hebrew. (M means “people” or “nation” in Hebrew.

Thus we see that Y(QBJMR at item #102 on the Thutmosis III list can well be
interpreted as effectively having become YQB(M, which is YQB + (M, meaning “
Winepress People”.

Once one recognizes that the second half of version #2 of this city name
means “people”, one then realizes that the first half cannot mean “crooked”.
Certainly this Canaanite city name did not mean “Crooked People”! (“Crooked
Mother” would be just as bad.) Rather, when we get to the Biblical Hebrew
equivalent name, we will see the ayin having dropped out of the first half of
this
city name. The townspeople, by changing the pronunciation of their town’s
name (gliding over the ayin near the beginning of the name, and adding a
mem/M
near the end), neatly changed the old-fashioned, out-of-date original city
name “
Jacob-El” to: “Winepress People”.

It is this new, modified version of the ancient Amorite name “Jacob-El” that
we should look for in the Bible. No city name “Jacob-El” as such appears in
the Bible. But we can find a fairly close equivalent in the Bible to YQB-(M,
meaning “Winepress People” (not “Crooked People” or “Crooked Mother”, and
not, per Biblical scholars, “Burn People”), in the Shephelah, exactly where
we should rightly expect to find it in the Bible.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

**************Inauguration '09: Get complete coverage from the nation's
capital.(http://www.aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000027)



  • [b-hebrew] question B HEBREW, Laurent Pinchard, 01/21/2009

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