Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

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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