Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:
 
1.  You wrote:  “In Biblical Hebrew[, MDBR/midbar was] most likely connected 
to the root concerning poking (with a sharp object), stinging or even 
injuring, so a MDBR is a
 place where such plants and animals dwell. Many of these places in the past
 were vast grasslands with cacti and spiny trees interspersed among the
 grasses, today they are deserts. While a MDBR could contain a rugged, hilly
 area, that was not a defining characteristic of MDBR.”
 
MDBR in I Samuel primarily means a place where animals could live, but where 
large numbers of human beings could not live, so there would be no towns in 
MDBR.  Many parts of hill country north of Hebron fit that description.  The 
land was not good enough for farming, and there were few if any sizeable 
towns.  
But sheep and goats could be grazed there for some periods of time.
 
North of Hebron, and well west of the Dead Sea, was not a desert, but rather 
was MDBR.  I agree that in other locales, MDBR would not necessarily be 
rugged, hilly pastureland, but that type of terrain north of Hebron is 
characterized 
in the Bible as MDBR.  The typical English translation of “wilderness” is 
misleading.  It’s not a desert, and it might be semi-decent pastureland in 
some 
seasons.
 
2.  You wrote:  In response to my assertion that "Jeshimon"/Y$YMWN as
 used here is the Biblical word for the Judean Desert, a true desert”, you 
wrote:  “Where do you get these "definitions"? As a verb, Y$M is used once in 
Ezekiel
 6:6 to refer to a place without inhabitants, the noun to a deserted place.”
 
Yes, Y$M can be used in various ways, all referring to the concept of a place 
being deserted.  In I Samuel, it is used as a nifty one-word reference to the 
Judean Desert.  It makes perfect sense.
 
3.  You wrote:  “Where do you get this crazy idea that anyone claims this? 1 
Samuel mentions that the Philistines gathered together at )PQ, a town 
mentioned in Joshua
 19:30. This was in the area alloted to Asher, in central to northern Canaan. 
 From there they marched to where Saul's army was encamped.”
 
(a)  There is an Aphek located north of Mt. Carmel, in Asher.  But the 
Philistines were never anywhere close to being that far north, for heaven’s 
sake.  
The Philistines did not get much further north than Ashdod and Ekron.  The 
Philistines were basically west of Judah, not north or northwest of Judah.
 
(b)  Some scholars think that the Aphek northeast of Joppa is the northern 
extent of the Philistines’ dominions.  A poster on ANE-2 just now wrote:  “I 
have also read in another text a theory that Tel Qasille (Tel Aviv area) near 
the mouth of the Yarkon and Aphek at the upper end of the Yarkon River was 
the 
northern extent of the Philistine occupation.  Aphek was destroyed multiple 
times and theoretically destroyed in the middle of the 11th century, 
presumably 
by Israel.”   
 
That Aphek is only a few miles north of the northern Philistine border in any 
event.  That is likely the Aphek that is being referenced at Samuel 29: 1.  
(That Aphek of the Philistines is nowhere near the famous Jezreel in the 
Jezreel Valley, and the Philistines never went anywhere near the Jezreel 
Valley.)
 
(c)  We know there was a Jezreel in Judah (not the Jezreel in the Jezreel 
Valley far to the north in Issachar), because Joshua 15: 56 tells us that.  I 
Samuel 29: 1 further tells us:
 
“Now the Philistines gathered together all their hosts to Aphek; and the 
Israelites pitched by the fountain which is in Jezreel.”   
 
Furthermore, note that at I Samuel 25: 43, David takes as his second wife a 
women from Jezreel, and as his third wife Abigail of Carmel.  Joshua 15: 
55-57 
groups Carmel, Jezreel and Timnah together.  The real Timnah is Samson’s 
Timnah, located just west of the foothills of hill country in the eastern 
Sorek 
Valley.  That’s where historical Carmel is located, per the Amarna Letters.  
Jezreel must likewise have been a border town, south of Aijalon, in or near 
the 
foothills of hill country, northwest of the city of Hebron.  By taking 2nd 
and 
3rd wives from the border towns Jezreel and Carmel, northwest of the city of 
Hebron, David was announcing to the world that David was not content to 
continue 
hiding out south (not southeast) of the city of Hebron indefinitely, but 
rather David was going to seek to gain influence north of the city of Hebron, 
both 
in hill country and on the eastern edge of the northeast Shephelah as well.
 
The Philistines did not operate east of the foothills of hill country.  All 
the clues lead to the same result.  Jezreel and Carmel and Timnah and the 
Philistines’ attack are at or near the foothills of hill country, on the 
border 
between hill county and the Shephelah, northwest of the city of Hebron.
 
The point I keep making is that  a-l-l  of the southern Hebrews, including 
all Biblical authors, knew the geography of southern Canaan like the back of 
their hand.  There’s no way that Joshua or I Samuel or Judges or the 
Patriarchal 
narratives could utilize a fictional local geography of southern Canaan.  No 
way.
 
The Aphek way up in Asher has nothing to do with anything.  We’re talking 
southern Canaan here.
 
Likewise, the desolate western extension of the Judean Desert southeast of 
the city of Hebron has nothing to do with anything either.  All of the 
Biblical 
authors, and all of their audience, knew that there were no towns in the 
desolate wasteland southeast of the city of Hebron.  I Samuel 30: 26-31 
confirms 
that even young David as a bandit refused to spend time southeast of the city 
of 
Hebron, instead usually staying south of Hebron, and occasionally venturing 
north of Hebron, but never southeast of Hebron.  There’s no there there 
southeast of Hebron, as all the southern Hebrews well knew.
 
4.  You wrote:  “Why dream up a second Timnah northwest of the city of Hebron?
”
 
There’s only one Timnah.  That’s Samson’s Timnah, northwest of Hebron, in 
the east end of the Sorek Valley.  See Judges 13: 24-25;  14: 1.
 
There is no Timnah in the desolate wasteland southeast of the city of Hebron, 
as Anson Rainey and other scholars hypothesize.  No way.  There’s no Timnah 
there, or any other town there.
 
5.  You wrote:  “2 Chronicles 28:18 mentions that Timnah was either in the
 Shepalah, or to the south. Since it wasn't in the Shepalah, it was to the
 south.”
 
Here is what II Chronicles 28: 18 says:
 
“The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the Lowland [SPLH/Shephelah], 
and of the South of Judah, and had taken Beth-shemesh, and Aijalon, and 
Gederoth, and Soco with the towns thereof, and Timnah with the towns thereof, 
Gimzo 
also and the towns thereof; and they dwelt there.”
 
Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Socoh, Timnah and Gimzo were all located in 
the Shephelah.
 
Everyone agrees that the real Timnah was located in the Shephelah, just west 
of the foothills of hill country, in the eastern Sorek Valley.  The question 
is whether there was a second Timnah, with the same name, located southeast 
of 
the city of Hebron, in the desolate wasteland where there were never any 
towns 
at all.  That is the second, fictional Timnah that scholars have dreamed up 
out of whole cloth, based on their profound misinterpretation of Joshua 15: 
55-57.
 
There’s no Timnah southeast of the city of Hebron.  There’s nothing 
southeast of the city of Hebron.
 
The Biblical authors aren’t talking geographical nonsense.  No way.  All the 
Biblical authors knew there was nothing southeast of the city of Hebron.
 
6.  You wrote:  “When Solomon died, Pharaoh Thutmosis III / Shisherka / $$Q 
maneuvered to get his puppet Jeroboam installed as king over the break away 
Northern Kingdom.  Then he had an excuse to protect his investment (and gain) 
in 
Jeroboam. Why would he mention an area that he got by guile instead of force 
of arms?
 Would that count as a great, heroic victory? Of course he would still
 benefit from that acquisition, and to make sure his puppet stayed loyal, set
 up garrison towns. But wouldn't his boasting be for the cities he conquered
 by force of arms in heroic battle, in the confines of Judea and Benjamin,
 mostly in the hill country, and other areas outside the control of the
 Northern Kingdom?  So why invent fictional duplicate towns in areas like the 
Jezreel valley and the Shepela to fit your fictional history?”
 
(a)  Thutmosis III and Shishak are two completely different pharaohs, in 
completely different time periods.  Yet we know from their lists of conquered 
towns in Canaan that both of them made a beeline for the relatively wealthy 
Aijalon Valley, in the northeast Shephelah.  In southern Canaan, that’s where 
the 
wealth was.  Neither pharaoh paid any attention to the desolate wasteland 
southeast of the city of Hebron.  No one paid any attention to the desolate 
wasteland southeast of the city of Hebron.
 
(b)  All of Thutmosis III’s actual conquests of hostile towns in Canaan are 
set forth prominently in the first two-thirds of the Thutmosis III list.  
That 
makes perfect sense for propaganda purposes.  Then in the last third, largely 
as padding, Thutmosis III threw in every single town in the greater Aijalon 
Valley area, even though that was non-hostile territory.  But his scribes had 
written down all those 27 places, where the Egyptian troops had assembled for 
the conquest of central Canaan.  So why not throw those 27 places in near the 
very end of the list?  That’s exactly what he did.
 
If you want to know what names places had in the greater Aijalon Valley as of 
the mid-15th century BCE, they’re all there, in 27 consecutive items at #90 - 
#116 on the Thutmosis III list.  And all such 27 consecutive items also 
appear in Joshua, showing that Joshua had fine, authentic Late Bronze Age 
sources 
for his city lists.
 
All of those 27 consecutive items are in or near the Shephelah, and not a one 
of such items is in or near the Jezreel Valley, or southeast of the city of 
Hebron.  No one ever paid the slightest bit of attention to the desolate 
wasteland southeast of the city of Hebron.  As I believe I may have said, 
there’s no 
there there.  In particular, there’s no Jezreel, Carmel, Timnah or Ziph or 
Maon, or any other town, southeast of the city of Hebron.  There’s nothing 
there.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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