Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

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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