Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Yitzhak, Kevin and Karl:

We’re all learning a lot from your linguistic analysis of the name “Tyre”.
 But I think you’re missing how the Bible treats Tyre.

A.  Ezekiel

The most famous denunciations of Tyre in 5,000 years of human history are
in chapters 26-28 of Ezekiel.  Ezekiel carefully uses the insulting spelling
of Tyre -- CR, being the same spelling in unpointed text as “enemy” -- at
the beginning of all three chapters:  26: 2;  27: 2;  28: 2.  But then, in
order to let the audience know that he darn well knows the proper spelling of
Tyre -- CWR, “divine-like rock” -- Ezekiel in all three chapters switches,
at times, to the proper spelling, e.g. 26: 15;  27: 3;  28: 12.  Sometimes
he then switches back to the insulting CR later in the chapter.

That’s not a “mistake” or “sloppiness”.  No way.  Ezekiel is going out of
his way to insult hated Tyre, by prominently and often (though not always,
for emphasis) spelling the name Tyre as CR, which is the same spelling in
unpointed text as “enemy”.

B.  “Divine-Like Rock”

Just as surely, in 100% of the cases in the Bible when YHWH is referred to
as being a “divine-like rock”, the proper spelling, CWR, of that common
noun is  a-l-w-a-y-s  used:  Deuteronomy 32: 4, 15, 18, 30;  II Samuel 22: 3,
32, 47, 47;  Isaiah 17: 10;  26: 4;  30: 29;  44: 8.  Habakkuk 1: 12.

That’s not a “mistake” or “happenstance”.  No way.  When Biblical authors
want to be properly respectful (such as whenever they refer to YHWH),
Biblical authors know to use the proper spelling, CWR, not the insulting
spelling, CR.

C.  Patriarchal Narratives

The author of the Patriarchal narratives could not afford to refer to Tyre
as CR, using the insulting spelling, as Tyre’s ruler, Abimelek, is portrayed
somewhat positively, and at that time it was hoped that Tyre might help
keep the dreaded Hittites out of Canaan.  But like most other Biblical 
authors,
who decline to use the proper spelling CWR for Tyre on 37 of 47 occasions
(with most of the CWR spellings being in Ezekiel, as discussed above), the
author of the Patriarchal narratives was unwilling to refer repeatedly to Tyre
as being a “divine-like rock”/CWR.  So here’s the nifty solution he came
up with.  Tyre is only referred to by name once, at Genesis 20: 1. On that
one occasion, the Patriarchal narratives use the non-standard spelling %WR.
That sounded a lot like CWR, but it meant “power”, not “divine-like rock”.
It was not insulting.  The only difference in sound was that the S was not
emphatic.  The Patriarchal narratives then always refer to Tyre thereafter
as GRR/Gerar, which was actually the swath of Upper Galilee that Tyre
controlled between the coast and QD$ of Upper Galilee.

Note that the Patriarchal narratives manage, with hard work, to be neutral
as to the name Tyre, using neither CWR as a positive divine epithet, nor CR/“
enemy” as an open insult.

D.  Yitzhak’s and Kevin’s Analyses

Yitzhak writes:  “Before the Persian period, the word CR ‘Tyre’, CR ‘rock’
, and CR ‘foe’ were all spelled the same.”

How then account for the varying spellings of Tyre in the received text of
the Bible?  Perhaps Ezekiel does not pre-date the Persian period, at least
in its final form.  In other cases, Yitzhak is presumably assuming later
editing was done of earlier works.

But note this key point made by Yitzhak:  “[Y]ou have a point that in the
Bible the pronunciation of 'Tyre' CR is with a holam (COR) whereas the
pronunciation of 'Rock' CWR is with a shuruk (CUR).”

But in yesterday’s post, Yitzhak himself emphasized that these are the same
word.  We see that the Hebrews refused to pronounce the common word CWR,
meaning “divine-like rock” or “rock”, the same as they pronounced the name
of hated Tyre, even though it was the same word.

Let me now quote Kevin, only slightly out of context:  “I think someone has
already pointed out that 'ideal spelling' was probably a foreign concept
for most people throughout history - even the concept of correct' spelling had
a hard time being established.”

If the Patriarchal narratives are much older than the rest of the Bible,
which is my view of the case, then we cannot be sure how Tyre would have been
spelled by an early Hebrew that long ago.  Both CWR and CR may have been
deemed unacceptable, for the reasons I set forth above.  Or per Yitzhak’s
analysis, perhaps CWR was not possible at that early date.  What we see in the
received, unpointed text is either %WR or $WR.  I myself see %WR as being
closer to the correct spelling of Tyre than is the usual Biblical spelling of
Tyre:  CR.  But the point is that if the Patriarchal narratives are really,
really old, then a non-standard spelling of a proper name is not particularly
surprising.  Biblical authors refused to honor the name of Tyre as being the
same as the common word for “divine-like rock”, a magnificent common word
that was often reverentially applied to YHWH.  My point is that we should
determine the identity of the %WR referenced at Genesis 20: 1 primarily by
substantive content, not primarily based on how Tyre came to be customarily
spelled in later books in the Bible.

E.  Conclusion

The varying spellings of Tyre in the Bible as CWR vs. CR are not
happenstance.  Rather, the spelling CR was consciously used by Biblical 
authors as
being openly insulting to Tyre.  Most Biblical authors refused to refer to the
arrogant, hated, rich island city-state of Tyre, which usually failed to
help out the Hebrews, by the divine epithet CWR [“divine-like rock”], even
though they well knew that was the proper spelling.

Ezekiel knew exactly what he was doing in spelling “Tyre”.  The two
different spellings in Ezekiel are carefully chosen to maximize the insult to
hated Tyre/CR/“enemy”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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