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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Halhul, Jezreel and Timnah

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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: kwrandolph AT gmail.com, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Halhul, Jezreel and Timnah
  • Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 15:18:25 EST


Karl:

You wrote: “To quote you, you claimed that MDBR means "rugged, hilly
pastureland". Not one of the references you pointed to give that definition.
Where
did you get it from?”

Perhaps my first post on this thread was misleading. What I was saying was
that (i) the land north and northeast of the city of Hebron is MDBR, (ii)
some
MDBR, but not all MDBR, is rugged, hilly pastureland, and (iii) the MDBR
north
and east of the city of Hebron is rugged, hilly pastureland. I am perfectly
well aware of the fact that not all MDBR is rugged, hilly pastureland, and I
did not mean to imply the contrary.

I don’t know why people want to see so many definitions of MDBR, but here are
two more, this time from impeccable scholarly sources.

(1) HALOT

“pasture, steppe, wilderness, desert”

If you combine the notions of “pasture” and “steppe”, you’re basically
talking “rugged, hilly pastureland”.

(2) Koehler und Baumgartner, “Hebraisches und Aramaisches Lexikon” (1995)

“Trift, Steppe, Wuste”

Per the 2005 Oxford-Duden German Dictionary, “Trift” means:

“common (esp. mountain) pasturage”

Once again, “mountain pasturage” looks a lot like “rugged, hilly pastureland”
.

As far as I can tell, everyone agrees on the meaning of MDBR. MDBR can
include, but is by no means limited to being, rugged, hilly pastureland.
MDBR
cannot be cultivatable land, where wheat or barley is grown. But MDBR can be
almost anything else. There clearly is a tension in this Hebrew word between
the
concept of “pastureland”, which would basically be positive, and the concept
of “desert” or “wilderness”, which would be decidedly negative. MDBR often
means pastureland, but with a somewhat negative connotation, indicating very
modest land.

For purposes of this thread, what counts is whether the land north and
northeast of the city of Hebron was MDBR. It was. That’s what I’m saying.
Thus
the “MDBR of Ziph” could be the land north and northeast of the city of
Hebron, in terms of that land being classic MDBR land.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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