Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Yitzhak Sapir:

Since you have raised the question of Hazor in a mid-14th century BCE
context, may I be permitted a few comments?

Although Hazor had been the dominant city-state in eastern Upper Galilee in
the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, Hazor seems to have declined throughout
the Late Bronze Age.  QD$ of Upper Galilee, meanwhile, rose in importance
during the Late Bronze Age.  In part based on the Amarna Letters that you
cited, it seems that Ssur/Tyre made an unofficial alliance with QD$.  Trade 
and
travelers that formerly had gone through Hazor now went through nearby QD$
instead.  QD$ was the junior partner in this alliance, which was dominated by
the arrogant island city-state of Ssur.  Thank to this somewhat one-sided
alliance with QD$, Abi-MLK of Ssur effectively controlled the rolling/GRR/GLL
hills between QD$ and Ssur.

Now note the pinpoint historical accuracy of Genesis 20: 1 in this precise
context.  Abraham lived between QD$ and Sur [Sur for Ssur], and Abraham
sojourned in GRR, whose ruler was named Abi-MLK.  How can you get a Biblical
text to match well-documented secular history more closely than that?  NGB at
Genesis 20: 1, past which Abraham travels to get to QD$, is spelled the same
as NGB in northern Canaan (on the west bank of the Sea of Galilee) at item
#57 on the Thutmosis III list.  QD$ at Genesis 20: 1 is, if one ignores the
pointing, spelled the same as QD$ of Upper Galilee in Ugaritic literature.
Sur at Genesis 20: 1 uses a different letter for the initial S-type sound
than does Ssur in secular history, but its merely regular S/sin [in unpointed
text] vs. emphatic S/ssade, which is pretty close.  GRR at Genesis 20: 1 is
thought by some scholars to be an identical spelling to Egyptian KRR at item
#80 on the T III list.  Abi-MLK at Genesis 20: 2 is the identical spelling
as Abi-MLK in the Amarna Letters, a name that semi-uniquely honors Baal under
the odd name MLK, which was the name by which Baal was called at Ssur.

In these five names, all of the spellings are identical, except for a
single S-type sound.

And note the precise knowledge of the exact political situation.  Switch
Hazor for QD$, and the politics would no longer make sense.  Abi-MLK was not
the ruler of the GRR/GLL/rolling hills between Ssur and Hazor, because we
know from the Amarna Letters that Ssur and Hazor were antagonists, not allies.
The more one examines the situation in Late Bronze Age northern Canaan
under a microscope (per the Amarna Letters), the closer the match to Genesis 
20:
1-2.

Once we understand that Ssur and QD$ of Upper Galilee were allies in the
Late Bronze Age, allowing Abi-MLK to dominate the rolling/GRR/GLL hills
between Ssur and QD$ [referred to as GRR/Gerar in the text], Genesis 20: 1-2 
makes
perfect sense, on all levels, in a Late Bronze Age northern Canaan context.
 If we ignore II Chronicles and the pointing done in the Dark Ages (as we
certainly should, in my view), the match between Genesis 20: 1-2 and the
secular history of northern Canaan in the Late Bronze Age is absolutely
stunning, don’t you think?

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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