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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The Name "Hebron
  • Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 10:12:02 EDT





Yitzhak Sapir:

Thanks for the excellent cites, which I will comment on in a moment.

1. We know from the sources you cite and the Samaritan Pentateuch that XBR
was sometimes pronounced by persons other than southern Hebrews as either )BR
or abar. As to XBR being pronounced with an initial aleph/) in ancient
times,
consider then archaic )BYR at Genesis 49: 24, meaning “mighty”. BDB says: “
old name for God (poet.)”. )BYR is the construct state, with the base word
presumably being )BR. BDB and Gesenius agree that the root of )BYR is )BR,
from
the Assyrian root abaru, meaning “be strong”. In Biblical Hebrew, )BR
usually means “fly” or “wing”, but in days of old, )BR in Hebrew had
originally
meant “mighty”.

Now consider Egyptian JBR, which could sound like both )BR and XBR (since, as
discussed below, the classic use of the Egyptian single reed/J was to record
a west Semitic word pronounced by some people in Canaan with an aleph while
pronounced by other people in Canaan with a heth; Egyptian R could be either
resh/R or lamed/L). )BR in days of old had connotations to the Hebrews of “
mighty”, as in “the Mighty One/God” in the Patriarchal narratives at Genesis
49:
24. XBR means “to join”, usually in a positive sense, and so XBR could imply
to the Hebrews “to be joined with God”. These are wonderful divine
overtones for the XBR we see in XBR + N or XBR + WN: the Hebrew name
“Hebron”. If
the heth is given a softer pronunciation, we have a reference to YHWH via
)BR/“
mighty”, whereas a regular heth pronunciation is “to join”, meaning that
Abraham and Abraham’s descendants are eternally and divinely “joined”/XBR to
southern Canaan at the Patriarchs’ “Hebron”. XBR, per )BR. Nice! Moreover,
as
a completely separate matter, each of )BR and XBR has a similar sound to JBR,
and as such XBR could, on another level, be a deliberate reference to JBR/the
Aijalon Valley, at item #99 on the mid-15th century BCE Thutmosis III list.
The point is that even within Biblical Hebrew itself, as attested in the
Patriarchal narratives, we see that both XBR and )BR could have divine
implications,
and thus be a fitting basis for XBRWN/“Hebron”: XBR + WN. Yes, there are
different Akkadian cognates for )BR vs. XBR. But if aleph is the soft side
of
heth, as it certainly was in Akkadian, then the sounds of XBR and )BR could
be
quite similar, and thus be clever Hebrew wordplay in embodying two different
references to YHWH, while in addition, as a separate matter, XBRN also
references the Aijalon Valley via Egyptian JBR.

2. Moving now to the Samaritan Pentateuch in particular, I read HALOT as
saying that in some versions of the Samaritan Pentateuch, XBR as a noun, and
the name XBRWN/“Hebron”, were written with an initial aleph, not an initial
heth. A different issue, which is what you are emphasizing in your fine
post,
is that it may well be that the northern Hebrews routinely pronounced XBR and
XBRWN with an initial aleph or vowel-type sound, even where the spelling was
with a heth. The point is that XBR could imply )BR and vice versa. If
Egyptian JBR sounded like )BR, then writing XBR could imply all of the
following:
(i) )BR, because XBR was often pronounced )BR by many west Semitic speakers,
(ii) JBR, because Egyptian JBR sounded like both )BR and XBR, and (iii) of
course
XBR itself. Thus the XBR in XBRN/“Hebron” may be referencing all three such
words: (i) )BR, as a reference to “the Mighty One”, that is, YHWH, (ii)
JBR, meaning the Aijalon Valley, per the Thutmosis III list, and (iii) being “
joined”/XBR with YHWH in southern Canaan. XBR, per )BR, at JBR. The name “
Hebron”, which is redolent of XBR and )BR and JBR, is clever Hebrew wordplay
at
its finest.

Although the Samaritan Pentateuch is not nearly as accurate as the Masoretic
Text regarding substantive content, the Samaritan Pentateuch (a) may be as
old
as the Masoretic Text, and (b) may well be better than the Masoretic Text in
reflecting the vulgar speech of both non-Hebrew Canaanites and the northern
Hebrews.

3. Now on to your fine cites. Let me quote first from pp. 153-154 of Angel
Saenz-Badillos and John Elwolde, “A History of the Hebrew Language” (1996)
Cambridge University Press:

“In SH [Samaritan Hebrew], the distinctive pronunciation of all these
consonants [including heth] was lost, with a neutralization of…[heth], the
tendency
being to pronounce [heth] as aleph…. According to Macuch, [this is] due to
foreign influence, although the language in question is not Aramaic (since,
in
his opinion, Aramaic developed in a quite different way) but Akkadian, that
is,
the language spoken by the Assyrian colonists who settled in Israel in the
seventh to sixth centuries BCE.”

Beginning in the 3rd millennium BCE, Akkadian began dropping certain types of
heths, replacing them with either aleph or some other letter, perhaps a pure
vowel sound.

The question for us is what Thutmosis III heard when he came into Canaan in
the mid-15th century BCE. Did many of the non-Hebrew Canaanites pronounce
these Semitic words that begin with a written heth in Biblical Hebrew by
saying
aleph, or perhaps ayin or some type of a vowel sound? That type of thing had
been going on in Akkadian for over 500 years at that point.

Is it likely that the non-Hebrew Canaanites always kept a true heth
pronunciation, and only began to drop it when Assyrians settled Akkadian
speakers in
Samaria in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, as this article seems to suggest?
Why
would Canaanites be 1,500 years slower than the Akkadians regarding this
phenomenon? Do we really think that non-Hebrew Canaanite languages were
virgin
pure until the Assyrians ruined everything by sending Akkadian speakers to
Samaria? Isn’t that both romantic and false?

We have very little writing from the non-Hebrew Canaanites. Moreover, you
raise the issue of sometimes a heth not being pronounced, even when it was
written.

If the people in Canaan in the mid-15th century BCE split in pronunciation
between aleph and heth at the beginning of a word, then the Egyptians would
presumably write down a single reed [J], because that is the classic use of
an
Egyptian J. If all the Canaanites were saying aleph, we might expect a true
Egyptian aleph to be used, but instead we see an Egyptian J in JBR at item
#99 on
the Thutmosis III list.

Note that Moshe Florentin, at p. 179 of “Late Samaritan Hebrew” (2005)
Brill, though admittedly speaking about a much later time period, expressly
states
that XBR/“joined” at Exodus 36: 10 in the Samaritan Pentateuch was spelled
with an initial heth, as XBR, but pronounced as a vowel sound, as “abar”,
rather than being pronounced with a heth.

The question is whether XBR in Biblical Hebrew may sometimes have been
pronounced with an aleph or ayin or vowel sound by non-Hebrew Canaanites in
the
mid-15th century BCE. Since some heths have been dropping out of Semitic
languages since the 3rd millennium BCE, while being replaced by an aleph or
an ayin or
a vowel sound, initially in pronunciation only, but then later in spelling as
well, why should we think that such process did not begin in Canaan until “
the early centuries CE”, as you oddly assert?

It is no surprise that the scribes in Jerusalem insisted that the southern
Hebrews’ sacred scripture must always retain the original, correct spellings
and
pronunciations of all Hebrew common words, even if the vulgar pronunciations
and spellings all around them were often different. In terms of vulgar
pronunciations, the Masoretic Text is not a good guide. The Masoretic Text
is
incredibly great for accuracy of substantive content, but it is
correspondingly
very poor as a guide to vulgar pronunciation, especially as to actual
pronunciation by non-Hebrew Canaanites in the Late Bronze Age!

4. It seems logical to me that in the Late Bronze Age, the west Semitic
words XBR and XBL were often pronounced with an initial aleph or vowel sound
by
non-Hebrew Canaanites, as )BR or )BL. Thutmosis III heard all of those
various
pronunciations.

It’s an objective fact that an Egyptian J is used frequently on the Thutmosis
III list, in addition to a true Egyptian aleph. To me, the logical
explanation for the frequent use of the Egyptian J is that a minority of
people in
Canaan, such as the first Hebrews or pre-Hebrews in southern Canaan,
pronounced
words beginning with a heth with a true heth sound, but a majority of people
in
Canaan often softened the pronunciation, so that it sounded more like aleph
(or ayin or a vowel sound). That is a key argument of mine: the frequency
of
the Egyptian J on the Thutmosis III list means that people in Canaan often
differed as to heth vs. aleph in pronunciation. The Egyptians heard both )BR
and
XBR (and/or )BL and XBL) in Canaan, and so the Egyptians logically wrote
down:
JBR. Even if the proper original spelling of the west Semitic word was XBR
or XBL (as faithfully and accurately recorded by the Masoretic Text, which
consistently refused to bend to vulgar Canaanite pronunciation , no matter
how
widespread), what counts is what Thutmosis III heard in Canaan (long before
there was a Masoretic Text). The presence of the Egyptian J is strong,
objective
evidence that Thutmosis III heard b-o-t-h aleph and heth by different
speakers in Canaan as to the west Semitic word XBR (and/or XBL), hence the
JBR at
item #99 on the mid-15th century BCE Thutmosis III list. The Egyptian J
covers
both the heth and aleph alternate pronunciations.

The Patriarchal narratives have XBR and )BR and )BL, though no XBL. XBR and
)BR have divine implications. All of XBR and )BR and )BL and XBL have a
somewhat similar sound to Egyptian JBR, and as such could be used to
reference the
Aijalon Valley. Once we realize that from the 3rd millennium BCE on, aleph
at
times was the soft side of heth, XBR can imply )BR by sound, and XBL can
imply )BL by sound. All four such words are redolent of the sound of
Egyptian
JBR, and hence are possible ways for the author of the Patriarchal narratives
to
reference the Aijalon Valley.

My “proof” of the foregoing is the very presence, in abundance, of the
Egyptian J on the Thutmosis III list. That indicates that the heth vs. aleph
alternative pronunciation was fully operational in Canaan in the Late Bronze
Age,
rather than not being present on the scene in Canaan until “the early
centuries
CE”, as you would have it.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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