Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:
 
You wrote:  “[T]he context [of $XR at Isaiah 23: 3] is that of Tyre where 
there
 is no need to consider Egypt as a possible understanding of this verse.”
 
1.  No lexicon sees $XR as referring to Tyre.  But then again, you 
specifically asserted in your post that all the lexicons may be wrong as to 
the meaning 
of $XR.  So let’s check it out.
 
2.  I do not see why $XR (or &XR) would ever have been used to reference 
Tyre/Sur, based on #3 below.  There has never been a heth/X in the name for 
Tyre 
(unless a glottalized S might be &X, but I do not think that’s the case).  No 
one else in the Bible refers to Tyre with a heth/X.  So I do not see how 
Isaiah 
could be referring to Tyre as $XR or &XR.  Three other Biblical authors refer 
to Egypt as $XWR or $YXWR, so it makes sense (per the conventional view) for 
Isaiah to refer to Egypt using the defective, and perhaps abbreviated, 
spelling of $XR.  Secondly, if the word at Isaiah 23: 3 is $XR, not &XR, as 
seems 
very likely, I do not think that the Bible or any other source ever refers to 
Tyre using a shin/$.  The first letter in the name of Tyre/Sur might be a 
glottalized S, an S sound coupled with a light sound deep in the throat 
(which might 
be sin/& or sin-aleph/&) or sin-ayin/&( [but never a shin/$]).  But usually 
the first letter in the name of Tyre/Sur comes out as a ssade/C (which 
becomes a 
T in Greek, and hence in Latin and English, as explained below).  A ssade is 
similar in sound to &/sin, but not to $/shin.  In Aramaic, a ssade is tied to 
an ayin.  But there’s no shin/$/Sh or heth/X in sight here.  So both the 
$/shin and the X/heth in $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 seem incompatible to me as a 
name for 
Tyre/Sur.  (See also #4 below, which looks at the context of Isaiah 23: 3.)
 
3.  Original and Later Forms of the Name for Tyre
 
Here is a wonderful blog, explaining in a single paragraph how “Suur” became 
the name for the troublesome island city-state of Tyre.  (If the characters 
do not print out right, which is likely, please go directly to the website 
referenced below for a better version of this paragraph.  I have put in a few 
comments of my own in brackets.)
 
“Mountains of Lebanon – some etymologies
 
Lebanon's cities and villages, tragically now in the news, have some 
interesting etymologies. I always used to wonder about the different names: 
why is the 
same city called Tyre in English, but Ṣuur in Arabic? [where the first 
letter is a ssade/C] or Byblos in English, and Jubayl in Arabic? The reasons 
illustrate the sheer length of these towns' history, and the time depth of 
Greece's 
contact with them.
 
 Sometime before the characteristic sound shifts of Proto-Canaanite happened 
- perhaps 1200 BC or so? - Tyre would have been known by a Semitic term 
meaning something like "peak" or "crag": θ'uur-u.  [Note:  A meaning of 
“peak” or “
crag” suggests CWR in Hebrew.  In the Bible, we usually see the shortened 
form CR, instead of CWR, for “Tyre”.  Note the presence of a ssade/C, which 
is 
an emphatic S/&/sin sound, and the notable absence of both a shin/$ and a 
heth/X.] This was borrowed by the early Greeks as tur-os > tyros (when u got 
fronted to y) > Latin Tyrus > English Tyre. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, that 
glottalised θ
', perhaps unsurprisingly, was among the first sounds to disappear; in 
Canaanite (that is, Phoenician, Hebrew, and assorted minor languages of the 
area), 
it became s' [glottalized S] (or ṣ – [ssade] it's hard to be certain whether 
the Canaanite emphatics were glottalised or pharyngealised). Case endings 
also 
vanished. This gave the Phoenician name: S'uur (or Ṣuur). It was adopted 
without change into Aramaic [with the Aramaic name for Tyre being CWR], and 
thence Arabic, as the region's languages shifted over time. The regular 
cognate of 
Proto-Semitic θ'uur-u in Arabic would have been ظور đ̣uur; this root is 
unattested as far as I know. However, in Aramaic *θ' became ṭ, and from this 
source the root entered pre-Arabic as طور ṭuur "mountain", a rare but 
well-attested term used in the Quran, notably for Mount Sinai. (In Ugaritic, 
freakishly enough, *θ' became γ (gh), and γuur- "mountain" is a well-attested 
Ugaritic word. In Ugaritic, incidentally, Tyre was actually called ṣuur-; so 
either 
my etymology here is wrong, which is possible, or Ugaritic borrowed the name 
after it had already changed *θ' to γ.)”
 
_http://lughat.blogspot.com/2006/07/mountains-of-lebanon-some-etymologies.html
_ 
(http://lughat.blogspot.com/2006/07/mountains-of-lebanon-some-etymologies.html)
 
 
“This blog is written at irregular intervals by Lameen Souag, currently 
studying linguistics at SOAS.”
 
4.  Going back now to the context of Isaiah 23: 3, the Hebrew word Y)R, in 
the singular, usually refers to the Nile River (even though the plural form 
can 
refer to rivers generally, not necessarily having anything to do with Egypt). 
 
At Isaiah 23: 3, $XR is shortly followed by Y)R.  This phrase is generally 
rendered as something like the following (taken from JPS1917):
 
“And on great waters the seed of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, was her 
[Tyre’s] revenue;”
 
If Y)R means the Nile River in Egypt, then the context is strongly suggesting 
that $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 is referring to Egypt.
 
$XR means “black”.  At Isaiah 23: 3, $XR means “Black”.  The Egyptians 
referred to their own country as “Black”, which comes out in Egyptian as 
Kemet.  
What could be more straightforward than that?  Isaiah is referring to Egypt, 
perhaps a bit poetically, as “Black”, using one of the Hebrew words for 
“black”
, which is $XR.
 
Western scholars of the Bible deny that, because they cannot stand the 
thought that the Bible might occasionally reference Egypt as “Black”, being 
an 
overtly positive reference to the fertile, “black” soil along the Nile River 
in 
Egypt, and being the Egyptian way of referring to Egypt.  But that’s the way 
it 
is.  We should not let HALOT tell us that $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 is not a Hebrew 
word, but rather is an Egyptian phrase meaning “pond of Horus”.  Nor does 
your suggestion that $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 means “Tyre” make sense either.  The 
name “Tyre”/Sur has never had a heth/X, and has never had a shin/$ either, 
much less the shin-heth/$X combination we see in $XR at Isaiah 23: 3.
 
Why fight the text, and the obvious explanation of the text?  $XR means “black
”, and at Isaiah 23: 3, $XR means “Black”, referring to Egypt/Kemet, where 
Kemet means “Black”.
 
Moreover, consider now the precise context of Isaiah 23: 3.  Isaiah is saying 
that arrogant Tyre will no longer be able to get filthy rich off of bounteous 
Egypt.  Tyre is the one being excoriated here, not Egypt.  This is the only 
time in the Book of Isaiah when it makes sense for Isaiah to use a poetic 
name 
for Egypt that emphasizes Egypt’s bounty:  “Black”, focusing on the fact that 
the source of Egypt’s great wealth was the fertile “black” earth along the 
Nile River.  Elsewhere in Isaiah, when Isaiah is excoriating Egypt, Isaiah 
sensibly does not use this poetic, overtly positive name for Egypt, which 
emphasizes that Egypt is bounteous.  But $XR/“Black” is the perfect name for 
Isaiah 
to use for Egypt in the particular context here, where Tyre is being told 
that 
Tyre will no longer be getting filthy rich off of bounteous Egypt.
 
At Isaiah 23: 3:
 
$XR = “Black” = Egypt
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

**************Feeling the pinch at the grocery store?  Make dinner for $10 or 
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