Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Laurent Pinchard <ougaritique AT yahoo.fr>]

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“crooked”, the time was ripe for a modification of this out-of-date city 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

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