Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Kevin Riley:
 
The analysis that you and others on this thread have made is very strong as 
to the common word XBR.  But as we shall see in this post, such analysis 
loses 
much of its force when applied to the proper name XBRWN/XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron”.
 
1.  )BL = BR
 
)BL is a well-known west Semitic word used by Canaanites.  )BL has the 
identical meaning as Aramaic BR:  “open pastureland” or “meadow”.  )BL is in 
the 
Bible about 7 times as the beginning part of various Canaanite geographical 
place names, with the )BL portion of the name meaning “meadow”.  The southern 
Hebrews, however, never refer to a meadow in Canaan by the common generic 
noun 
)BL.  That was not “the Hebrew way”.
 
The aleph in )BL is probably prosthetic.  The lamed/L at the end of )BL was 
indistinguishable by sound from the resh/R at the end of BR in the Late 
Bronze 
Age.  (No distinction at all between those 2 letters/sounds is made on the 
Thutmosis III list.)
 
So in a Bronze Age historical context, )BL and BR are probably linguistic 
equivalents, and definitely have the identical meaning:  “open pastureland”/“
meadow”.
 
The wondrous pastureland of the Aijalon Valley would be described by an 
Aramaic speaker as BR, by a Canaanite as )BL, by a southern Hebrew as XBL, 
perhaps 
by a northern Hebrew as )BL, and by an Egyptian scribe doing the Thutmosis 
III 
list as JBR.  Though XBL has a broader meaning than BR or )BL or JBR, it is “
the Hebrew way” of describing a place like the Aijalon Valley.  All  of these 
words are linguistic equivalents in a Late Bronze Age historical context.
 
2.  “Hebron” in Genesis Is Not a Reference to the City of Hebron
 
All of the Biblical authors, and all of their audiences, knew that in days of 
old, the city of Hebron did  n-o-t  have the name “Hebron”.  Joshua and 
Judges tell us that over and over again.  (Joshua 14: 15, etc.)  Secular 
historians agree with that.  So it would not make sense for the author of the 
Patriarchal narratives to refer to the city of Hebron by a name, “Hebron”, 
that 
everyone knew did not apply to such city in the Patriarchal Age.
 
Moreover,  n-o-t-h-i-n-g  in the description of the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” in 
Genesis resembles the mountainous city of Hebron in the Northern Negev Desert 
in any way.  If you were Abraham and had a huge flock of sheep and goats, a 
herd of camels, and 318 armed retainers, where would you go?  Remember, 
you’ve 
just told your nephew Lot that whatever way he chooses to go from Beth-el, 
you’
ll go the opposite way, and Lot has chosen to go  e-a-s-t.  Where will you 
go? 
 Of course, you’ll go  w-e-s-t  with the sheep and goats and camels and 318 
armed retainers to the wondrous pastureland of the Aijalon Valley, just as 
YHWH 
intended all along.  You wouldn’t go “up” (the text never says “up” 
regarding the Patriarchs’ “Hebron”), you wouldn’t go to the “hills” (the text 
never says “hills” regarding the Patriarchs’ “Hebron”), and as a pastoralist 
you 
wouldn’t go to a “city” (the text never says “city” regarding the Patriarchs
’ “Hebron”).  So the “city” of Hebron, “up” in the “hills”, is out of the 
question, as those three words are never used in the text of Genesis to 
describe the Patriarchs’ “Hebron”.  (Nor is any human being ever said in the 
text 
to go “down” from the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” to any other place in Canaan, 
such as Garar.)  No, you would go to where there were “oak trees” (which 
surround the Aijalon Valley, referred to 3 times regarding the Patriarchs’ 
“Hebron”
), and “Amorites” (in the northwest corner of southern Canaan, at the Aijalon 
Valley, with “Mamre” or “Amorites” being referred to about 10 times in the 
text concerning the Patriarchs’ “Hebron”), because that is where there was 
plenty of grass and water for your sheep and goats in the summer (unlike at 
the 
city later called Hebron), and it wasn’t too cold in the winter for your 
camels 
(unlike at the city later called Hebron).
 
The only reasonable conclusion from the foregoing is that XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron” 
in the Patriarchal narratives is  n-o-t  a reference to the city of Hebron 20 
miles south of Jerusalem.
 
3.  XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron” in Genesis = “The Open Pastureland Place”
 
The author of the Patriarchal narratives created the proper name XBRN/)BRN/“
Hebron”
to describe where Abraham sojourns in southern Canaan.  XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron” 
is deliberately redolent of BR, a Hebrew and Aramaic word that can mean “open 
pastureland, meadow”.  XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron” is also deliberately redolent of 
)BL, a Canaanite word that means “open pastureland, meadow”.  
XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron”
 is deliberately redolent of XBL, a Hebrew word that per HALOT can mean “a 
long, narrow field”.  But in context, XBL can also, in my view, uniquely 
imply “
a divinely-approved inheritance of a region of land”.  XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron” is 
deliberately redolent of )BL, which may be the northern Hebrew version of 
XBL, but which has the same sound as )BL, the Canaanite word for “open 
pastureland, meadow”.  And finally, XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron” is deliberately 
redolent of XBR, 
a Hebrew word that is intertwined with XBL in Biblical Hebrew, with both 
words involving thoroughgoing “rope imagery” and the concept of “binding”, or 
“
measuring land”, such as a large “open pastureland” like the Aijalon Valley.
 
The geographical place name XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron” was created by the author of 
the Patriarchal narratives to mean “the open pastureland place”.  That’s what 
XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron” means in the Patriarchal narratives.  The initial heth/X 
has to be there, to reference XBL as “a divinely-approved inheritance of a 
region of land”.  But XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron”, as a proper name brilliantly 
created 
by the Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narrative, is also deliberately 
redolent of a whole series of words that can mean “open pastureland”:  BR in 
Hebrew 
and Aramaic, )BL in Canaanite, XBL/XBR by the southern Hebrews, and )BL/)BR 
by 
the northern Hebrews.  XBRN/)BRN/“Hebron” in the Patriarchal narratives 
means “the open pastureland place”, and as such refers to the Aijalon Valley, 
not 
to the city in the Northern Negev Desert later called Hebron.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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