Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Yitzhak Sapir and Kevin Riley:

1.  Thank you for clarifying that I was, in Yitzhak’s words, “taking
various typographical schemes too ‘literally’.”  If I catch what the two of 
you
are saying, the first letter in Tyre was definitely an emphatic, but
scholars are not so sure exactly what type of an S sound it was over time.  A
Hebrew ssade in the Bronze Age was an emphatic, whereas a Hebrew sin was not, 
so
the more logical choice for the Hebrew spelling of the first letter in Tyre,
other things being equal, would have been a ssade, not a sin.

2.  Yitzhak continues:  “Third, the word "cur" means mountain, or rock, or
peak.”

Yes, but in the Bible, Tyre is not usually spelled CWR.  Rather, Tyre is
usually spelled CR.  CR is not a nice word.  It means “adversary, foe”.  By
stark contrast, famed scholar Gordon Wenham notes that CWR as a common word
is “a divine epithet”, meaning a divine-like rock, a symbol so grand and
positive that it is an eminently suitable symbol for YHWH in the Bible.

3.  Yitzhak presses this point further:  “You already KNOW that Tyre is
spelled in the
 Amarna letters with the underdotted s.”

Wm. Moran has “Surru”, with an underdotted S.  Anson Rainey has “cur-ri”,
where a c is a ssade.

Neither of those is very close to the way Tyre is usually spelled in the
Bible.  CWR would be close, but CR is not very close.

4.  Student linguist Lameen uses as one spelling:  “S’uur”.  That’s not
very close to the normal Biblical spelling.  S’uur has two vowels, whereas CR
has none.

5.  On English language websites about Lebanon, the spelling is often “Sour”
.  That’s not very close to the normal Biblical spelling.  Once again, it’
s two vowels vs. none.

6.  In the Bible, the normal spelling of Tyre is simply:  CR.  Yes, the
first letter is O.K.  But in unpointed text, why is this a two-letter word,
with no vav/W?

Whereas CWR as a common word is a divine epithet, CR as a common word is an
insult, meaning “foe, adversary”, as at Genesis 14: 20.

7.  Biblical authors were usually unwilling to spell Tyre as CWR.  Perhaps
that’s because CWR as a common word is a divine epithet, suitable for YHWH,
and as such not deemed suitable for the arrogant island city-state of Tyre.
That left two alternatives for spelling Tyre:  %WR or CR.  %WR had almost
the same sound as CWR in the Late Bronze Age, except that a non-emphatic S
was substituted for an emphatic S.  The two sounds were clearly
distinguishable, yet nevertheless similar.  The meaning of %WR would 
presumably be “power”
, which is not openly insulting, and which focuses on Tyre’s power in a
large swath of Upper Galilee.  CR seems to be as much a deliberate insult as 
it
does an innocuous “defective” spelling.  As noted above, CR means “foe,
adversary”.  In unpointed text, CR is not a nice way to spell the name Tyre,
nor is it very accurate.  It can also be confusing, as at Joshua 19: 35 the
Bible refers to a town near the Sea of Galilee in unpointed text as CR.

If we look at Joshua, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah and Jeremiah, which include
what are usually considered the first references in the Bible to Tyre, we see
CR 14 times, and CWR only once.  Joshua 19: 29;  II Samuel 5: 11;  24: 7;  I
Kings 7: 13;  9: 11, 12;  Isaiah: 23: 1, 5, 8, 15, 17;  Jeremiah 25: 22;
27: 3;  47: 4.  The only exception is I Kings 5: 1 [5: 15].

What’s going on here?  The Biblical authors do not seem to be making a
concerted effort to use the ideal spelling of Tyre, which presumably should be
CWR, not CR.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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