Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Kevin Edgecomb:
 
Thanks for your interesting comments.  For people interested in this 
fascinating topic, Kevin Edgecomb has a slightly longer, and very 
informative, 
treatment of this same topic here:
 
_http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/?p=358_ (http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/?p=358) 
 
Let me quote some of your comments from that other site.
 
1.  “To summarize reactions to the Biblical use of Shihor, the Isaiah and 
Jeremiah references are unanimously recognized as referring to the Nile, but 
the 
Joshua and Chronicles passages are not.”
 
Thus whereas Karl has argued that $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 means “Tyre”, not “
Egypt”, the unanimous view of scholars is (and here I agree with the 
scholars) 
that $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 is a reference to “Egypt” (or the Nile River).  I do 
not think that all the lexicons and all the scholars can be wrong about that.
 
2.  Tell Hebua/Shi-Hor is located on the far northwest corner of the Sinai, 
about where the northern end of the Suez Canal is today.  It’s over 150 miles 
west of Gaza, with the entire northern coast of Sinai being between Gaza and 
Tell Hebua.  Tell Hebua/Shi-Hor also is not very close to the main branch of 
the 
Nile River, south of the Delta, being about 100 miles north by northeast of 
Memphis.  Thus Tell Hebua/Shi-Hor (i) is not centrally located in Egypt, and 
as 
such is not a locale that represents Egypt as a whole, and (ii) is not 
located anywhere in the general vicinity of the southwest corner of the 
Promised 
Land, being over 150 long miles west of Gaza.
 
As we will now see, the location of Tell Hebua/Shi-Hor on the northwest 
corner of Sinai precludes it from being the $XR referenced in the 4 Bible 
verses 
that you cite.  Rather, in all 4 such Bible verses, $XR means “Black”/Egypt/“
bountiful Greater Egypt”, as we shall see.  (The term “Greater Egypt” 
includes 
the Sinai;  as you note, the Sinai was not considered by the Egyptians to be 
part of Egypt proper.  But Egypt maintained tight control over the entire 
northern coast of the Sinai.)
 
On the other hand, Tell Hebua/Shi-Hor has the right location for a different 
Hebrew word, $WR, that we see 5 times in the Bible:  Genesis 16: 7;  25: 18;  
Exodus 15: 22;  I Samuel 15: 7;  27: 8.  So there may be some connection of 
Tell Hebua/Shi-Hor to $WR, based on its location.  But Tell Hebua/Shi-Hor 
cannot 
be $XR, because its location is completely wrong for how $XR is used in the 
Bible.  
 
(i)  If $XR means the northeasternmost edge of Egypt, rather than being a 
reference to Egypt generally, Isaiah 23: 3 has a very odd ring about it:
 
“And on great waters the seed of Shihor [$XR], the harvest of the Nile, was 
her revenue….”  Isaiah 23: 3, per JPS1917
 
Why would “the seed of Shihor” be referring to the northeasternmost edge of 
Egypt?  Why would “the harvest of the Nile” be referring to the 
northeasternmost edge of Egypt?  Isaiah 23: 3 reads much more naturally if 
$XR means “Egypt”
/“Black”/“bountiful Greater Egypt”, than if $XR means the northeasternmost 
edge of Egypt.
 
$XR is a semi-poetical reference to Egypt, which could be translated as “
bountiful Egypt”.  Yes, I realize that the Bible often excoriates Egypt 
unmercifully.  But when the Bible does that, the word $XR is never used.  In 
a tiny 
handful of cases, consisting of all 4 out of 4 uses of $XR to refer to Egypt, 
the 
Bible has its reasons for referring to “bountiful Egypt”, as we shall see.  
Here at Isaiah 23: 3, as noted in my prior post, Isaiah is excoriating Tyre 
and 
Sidon (not Egypt), saying that Tyre and Sidon will no longer be getting 
filthy rich by trading with “bountiful Egypt”/$XR.  In that particular, 
limited 
context, a reference to “bountiful Egypt” is called for in the Bible.
 
(ii)  Now let’s consider Jeremiah 2: 18, which is the only other passage in 
the Bible where $XR is generally thought by most scholars to be referring to 
the Nile River:
 
“And now what do you gain by going to Egypt
    to drink the waters of the Nile [$XR]?
 Or what do you gain by going to Assyria
    to drink the waters of the Euphrates?”  Jeremiah 2: 18, per the English 
Standard Version translation
 
Note that $XR is translated there as “Nile”.  A translation of $XR there as 
the northeasternmost edge of Egypt, or the northeasternmost edge of the Nile 
River, does not make sense.  Much more natural is to see $XR as meaning 
“Black”
/Egypt/“bountiful Greater Egypt”.
 
(Other translations of Jeremiah 2: 18 refer to being “on the way” to Egypt 
and Assyria, but the verse makes more sense if Jeremiah is excoriating 
Hebrews 
for going to Egypt or going to Assyria, not for being “on the way” to going 
to those places.)
 
Note that at Jeremiah 2: 18, it’s not Egypt that’s being excoriated.  No, it’
s Hebrews who are considering selling out and adopting the soft life of 
infidels by moving to “bounteous Egypt”, a country that is filthy rich and 
that 
can offer the enticements of a soft life, who are being upbraided.  Once 
again, 
it makes perfect sense in this limited, particular context for the Bible to 
use a semi-poetical word for Egypt that means “bountiful Egypt”.  The literal 
meaning is “Black”, meaning “Black”/Kemet, which is how the Egyptians 
referred to their own country, focusing on the fact that Egypt’s great wealth 
stems 
from the fertile “black” earth along the Nile River in Egypt.
 
So we see that in both of the places where scholars generally agree that $XR 
is referencing the Nile River, a reference to Egypt in general, viewing $XR 
as 
meaning “Black”/Egypt/“bountiful Greater Egypt”, and focusing on Egypt’s 
great wealth, makes much more sense than trying to view $XR as being an 
Egyptian 
phrase that means “the northeasternmost edge of Egypt”, or “pond of Horus”.
 
3.  Kevin Edgecomb, you clearly do not approve of the scholarly reaction to 
two other uses of $XR as a geographical expression in the Bible.  To quote 
more 
of your quotation cited above:
 
“To summarize reactions to the Biblical use of Shihor, the Isaiah and 
Jeremiah references are unanimously recognized as referring to the Nile, but 
the 
Joshua and Chronicles passages are not. Some (like Naʾaman himself) would 
equate 
Shihor in the Joshua and Chronicles references to the Wadi Besor (so Naʾaman 
argues) as the “Brook of Egypt” rather than the Nile itself, though this 
“Brook 
of Egypt” is typically placed further south, at the Wadi el-Arish. Generally, 
the Joshua and Chronicles Shihor usage is denied as referring to the Nile 
because the Shihor is elsewhere not described as the border of Canaan or the 
Promised Land, while the “Brook of Egypt” is.”
 
Once again, note that if $XR means “Black”/Egypt/“bountiful Greater Egypt”, 
then everything makes sense.  Joshua 13: 3 and I Chronicles 13: 5 make 
perfect sense if the reference is to the border of Egypt generally (Greater 
Egypt), 
without specifying a particular “Water-body” connected to the Nile River.  It 
is simply impossible that a locale like Tell Hebua/Shi-Hor on the northwest 
corner of Sinai could be viewed as being the southwest corner of the Promised 
Land.  Scholars are right to reject that strange theory outright.
 
The Bible in those two passages is saying that everything northeast of “
bounteous Greater Egypt”/$XR is the Promised Land of the Hebrews.  Note that, 
as 
always when $XR is used in the Bible to refer to Egypt, Egypt here is not 
being 
excoriated.  On the contrary, the Bible is recognizing that Egypt is 
bounteous, but is asserting that everything northeast of bounteous Greater 
Egypt 
properly belongs to the Hebrews, as the Hebrews’ divine “bounty” from YHWH.  
Once 
again, these are rare instances where a semi-poetical reference to “bounteous 
Greater Egypt”/$XR/“Black”/Kemet makes sense in the Bible.  
 
4.  You also mention a third use of $XR as a geographical reference, where 
you yourself state that the meaning of $XR is “Black”:
 
“(There is also mention of a Shihor-Libnath, near Mount Carmel, in Jos 19.26, 
but this appears to be a Canaanite town or regional name interestingly based 
on a combination of the Semitic roots for “black” שחר and “white” לבן 
whatever the meaning may have been.)”
 
Karl has asserted that all the lexicons and translators are wrong in viewing 
$XR as meaning “black”.  But Isaac Fried has more or less admitted that $XR 
means “black”, while nevertheless insisting that $XR is “obscure”.  I don’t 
really understand George Athas’s specific comments, but they seem to be along 
the lines that $XR is allegedly obscure.  But what’s obscure here?  $XR means 
“
black”.  When $XR applies to Egypt, $XR means “Black”, with “Black”/Kemet 
being the Egyptians’ name for their own country.  $XR, when applied to Egypt, 
means “bounteous Greater Egypt”.
 
5.  You note disapprovingly:
 
“The fascinating information that Naʾaman provides from the Assyrian texts 
(in “The Brook of Egypt…” article noted above) is still equivocal, and the 
article has the overall feel of a tour de force rather than an objective, 
rational investigation.  It’s interesting, but forced in its fitting of the 
evidence 
to a hypothetical border placed close to Gaza.”
 
Still, Nadav Na’aman is the top scholar in the field.  The Bible considers 
everything west of Gaza, that is Sinai, to be within Egypt’s sphere of 
influence, hence being part of Greater Egypt, and certainly not being part of 
the 
Promised Land.  $XR means “Black”/Egypt/“bountiful Greater Egypt”, with no 
particular body of water being referenced.  $XR, being a reference to 
bountiful 
Greater Egypt as a whole, functions perfectly in the Bible as defining the 
southwest border of the Promised Land.  There is no way that Tell 
Hebua/Shi-Hor can 
play that role.  It’s located in the wrong place!
 
6.  Along with all Western scholars, you absolutely deny that $XR at Isaiah 
23: 3 could possibly, under any circumstances, have anything to do with 
“black”
:
 
“A coincidental similarity with a Hebrew root for black is only that:  
coincidental.” 
 
Yet in every case that you cite, a meaning of “Black”/Egypt for $XR, with 
$XR being a Hebrew word, not an Egyptian phrase, makes perfect sense.  
Meanwhile, $XR, as allegedly being an Egyptian phrase meaning “Water-body of 
Horus”, 
meaning the northeasternmost edge of Egypt, per the northeasternmost extent 
of 
the Nile River, makes no sense at all in any Bible verse that you cite.
 
Your view, and that of HALOT, that $XR is an Egyptian phrase meaning “
Water-body of Horus” does not work at Isaiah 23: 3 or Jeremiah 2: 18 (where 
Egypt in 
general is being referenced, not some spot in northwest Sinai), or at Joshua 
13: 3 or I Chronicles 13: 15 (where the Hebrew text, in context, as scholars 
rightly insist, is clearly referring to the border of Greater Egypt as being 
somewhere near Gaza, not over 150 miles west of Gaza in northwest Sinai).  
That’s 
0 for 4.  Meanwhile, all 4 cases make perfect sense if $XR = “Black” = Egypt 
= “bountiful Greater Egypt”.
 
7.  Thank you for your fascinating information.  However, I think that some 
of us will continue to view $XR at Isaiah 23: 3 as being a Hebrew word, not 
an 
Egyptian phrase.  And I for one see $XR as a geographical expression meaning “
Black”, which when applied to Egypt means “Black”/Kemet/“bountiful Greater 
Egypt”, based on the fact that the Egyptians called their own country 
“Black”, 
in honor of the fertile “black” earth along the Nile River that made Egypt 
wealthy. 
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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