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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: George.Athas AT moore.edu.au, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Halhul, Jezreel and Timnah
  • Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 10:30:49 EST


George:

You wrote: “You need to provide some solid linguistic evidence for your
claim about the meaning of MDBR. You actually haven't put forward an argument
yet.”

A. Although linguists are not certain of the etymology of the word MDBR,
there is substantial agreement as to its meaning. Here are 5 typical,
standard
views of the meaning of MDBR (several of which touch upon etymology), all of
which are acceptable to me.

(1) “1. tracts of land, used for the pasturage of flocks and herds….”
“2. uninhabited land”

BDB

(2) “an uninhabited plain country, fit for feeding flocks, not desert, a
pasture, from the root DBR No. 2, to lead to pasture”.

Gesenius

(3) “‘midbar’: usually translated with 'wilderness' but that doesn't seem
to do justice.
Midbar is the only word from the dbr stock that doesn't immediately
obviously fall into one of the two categories. But still it must be noted
that where
our English word 'wilderness' brings to mind something wild; something
untamed,
uncultivated, or unregulated, the word midbar brings to mind the word dabar;
word, entity, thing. Like words 'live' in the mouth, so do things live in a
midbar. A midbar is an ecosystem where entities exists in a larger system,
just
like words exists in speech.
The word midbar does not denote a specific kind of terrain, and even the
subdivision that some scholars list does not satisfy. Sometimes the word
denotes
lush stretches that are good for grazing (Psalm 65:12, Jer 23:10) but
sometimes a midbar is deserted and empty. Job 38:26 speaks of a land (eretz)
without
people (ish) and a wilderness (midbar) without men (adam), and just like a
land is not typically without people, so is a midbar also not typically
without
men. Sometimes the midbar even holds towns and peoples (Isa 42:11, Jos
15:61). Twice, however, the word is used metaphorically and typically
negative:
Hosea 2:5 and Jer 2:31, possibly valid by its ultimate association to
wildernesses such as the deserts of Negev and Sinai.”

_http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Dabar.html_ (http://www.
abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Dabar.html)

Abarim Publications' Biblical Name Vault

(4) “In so far as the Hebrew terms do not imply artificial desolation and
destruction, they connote a stretch of uncultivated land suitable for grazing
and occupied by nomads (Num. xiv. 33), as is clear both from the etymology of
the word "midbar," and from the fact that it and its synonyms usually denote
the
wilderness of the wandering or Exodus. Such a midbar occasionally existed in
the very midst of land under tillage (Gen. xxxvii. 22), and again was found
at
the borders as a transition from cultivated to uncultivated districts (Deut.
iv. 43; I Sam. xvii. 28).

_http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=183&letter=W_
(http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=183&letter=W)

Jewish Encyclopedia.com

(5) “(1.) Heb. midbar, "pasture-ground;" an open tract for pasturage….
It was a grazing tract, where the flocks and herds of the Israelites found
pasturage during the whole of their journey to the Promised Land. …[A]
country
without settled inhabitants and without streams of water, but having good
pasturage for cattle; a country of
wandering tribes, as distinguished from that of a settled people (Isa.
35:1;
50:2; Jer. 4: 11). …While midbar denotes properly a pastoral region,
arabah denotes a wilderness. …[T]he Hebrew word jeshimon is properly
rendered
"desert," meaning the waste tracts on both shores of the Dead Sea. …It
denotes a greater extent of uncultivated country than the other words so
rendered.”

Selections taken from Easton’s Bible Dictionary entry for “desert”

http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?dict=dictionaries&word=En-Gedi

B. Most of the land north and northeast of Hebron, south of Bethlehem, is
MDBR. It is modest pastureland, that is rugged and hilly. Sheep and goats
can
be pastured there. But wheat and barley cannot be grown there. And that
land
is so modest that only a small number of people can live there on a permanent
basis. There are no cities there, and no real towns. There’s only the
village of Halhul/Hachilah.

If we look at the first Hebrew villages on the map at p. 116 of Israel
Finkelstein’s “The Bible Unearthed”, we see literally hundreds of Hebrew
villages
in the hill country north of Jerusalem. But there are only a handful of
Hebrew
villages between Jerusalem and Hebron. And none of that handful of villages
are more than a mile east of a line drawn from Hebron to Bethlehem. Thus
north and northeast of the city of Hebron was MDBR, with Halhul/Hachilah
(north of
the city of Hebron) being virtually the only village in that MDBR. To the
east was the true desert, the Judean Desert, immediately west of the Dead
Sea,
sometimes referred to in the Hebrew Bible as Jeshimon.

There are many archaeological sites north and northwest of the city of
Hebron. But there are no archaeological sites north and significantly east
of the
city of Hebron, south of Bethlehem, because that was the rugged, hilly MDBR,
where few people lived on a permanent basis.

C. For this thread, which asserts that Hachilah and Halhul are one and the
same place, being virtually the only village north or northeast of the city
of
Hebron, the key text is I Samuel 26: 1-3. I will quote this key text again,
noting that it twice contrasts MDBR with Jeshimon.

“And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gibeah, saying: 'Doth not David hide
himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon [Y$YMWN]?' Then
Saul
arose, and went down to the wilderness [MDBR] of Ziph, having three thousand
chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness [MDBR] of
Ziph.
And Saul pitched in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon [Y$YMWN],
by
the way. But David abode in the wilderness [MDBR], and he saw that Saul came
after him into the wilderness [MDBR].” I Samuel 26: 1-3

The 1996 RSV adds the following footnote regarding the phrase “opposite
Jeshimon”:

“Or ‘opposite the waste-land’”

If I am right that Halhul/XLXWL is an alternative spelling of Hachilah/XKYLH,
then the geography being referenced here is clear. Halhul/Hachilah is a
lonely village in the MDBR north of the city of Hebron. To the east is first
MDBR, and then the true desert of the Judean Desert -- Jeshimon. The MDBR of
Ziph
is the MDBR north and northeast of the city of Hebron. Ziph itself is a city
or town located northwest of the city of Hebron, in or near the foothills on
the western edge of hill country. East of Ziph, west of the Judean
Desert/Jeshimon, is the MDBR of Ziph, being the MDBR north and northeast of
the city of
Hebron.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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