Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

James Christian:

You wrote:  “you've lost me a bit here. The text specifically mentions the
salt sea and Sodom and Gomorah. I've been looking at a map of Isreal and
have been unable to find a salt sea in the north anywhere.”

1.  What map are you looking at?  Just look west of Galilee and west of the
Jezreel Valley.  You didn’t think the Mediterranean Sea was a freshwater
lake, did you?

2.  “Siddim” is an archaic word for “fields”.  The Valley of
Siddim/Valley of Fields is the Jezreel Valley.  The Jezreel Valley is the 
only place in
Canaan that has always been devoted to fields, tilled by farmers, with
tent-dwelling nomads never being welcome there.  The Valley of Fields is the
Jezreel Valley (not a desert oasis near the Dead Sea, as scholars would have
it).  The final battle is portrayed as occurring right where one would expect:
at Megiddo, near the Valley of Fields (the Jezreel Valley/Valley of
Siddim), and near the bigger of the two salt seas that border Canaan.  Thus 
the
final battle occurs just southwest of the Jezreel Valley.

3.  No invading rulers would waste their time rampaging through the
Northern Negev Desert, as scholars would have it.  There was no loot there, 
and it
was uncomfortably close to mighty Egypt.  That scholarly theory of the case
makes no sense on any level.  (None of the five proper names at Genesis 14:
7 matches to a locale south of Gaza, per any secular historical inscriptions
that pre-date the common era.)

No, after quickly subduing the Transjordan, the four invading rulers act
very rationally.  First they go back to the northern Transjordan (the first
word at Genesis 14: 7).  Then they campaign in Upper Galilee, southern Lebanon
and eastern Lower Galilee (Genesis 14: 7, with all five proper names
matching to secular historical inscriptions from Late Bronze Age northern 
Canaan),
just as one would expect of rational invaders of Canaan.  Then finally they
move on to their ultimate target:  the fertile, attractive Jezreel Valley
(Valley of Siddim/Valley of Fields) in central Canaan, just as one would
expect of rational invaders of Canaan.  The final battle is fought at Megiddo,
just as one would expect, just southwest of the Jezreel Valley.  Everything
makes perfect sense, and nothing is peculiar, much less bizarre, as under the
scholarly view of chapter 14 of Genesis.

All of the local geography in the Patriarchal narratives always makes
rational and historical sense.  Why would anyone think otherwise?

4.  Here is the Anchor Bible Dictionary’s critique of the majority
scholarly view that sees Chedorlaomer as a king of Elam incongruously making a
series of grand conquests in, of all places, the Northern Negev Desert:

“[N]o king of Elam named Kutir/Kudur-Lagamar is attested, nor is there the
slightest evidence of Elamite political or military engagement in Palestine
at any time in history.”  [At p. 893 of Vol. I. under “Chedorlaomer”.]

5.  But on this thread, I am trying to focus on the linguistic issue of
Chedorlaomer’s title.  Under its entry for (WLM, HALOT notes the Ugaritic
phrase MLK (LM.  That phrase was unique to Ugaritic kings (otherwise only
applying to a deity).  In the defective spelling of the original version of 
chapter
14 of Genesis, Chedorlaomer’s title was likely:  MLK (LM.  That’s a
letter-for-letter match to the unique title of the kings of Ugarit!

If a king of Ugarit, along with three nearby allies, was not satisfied with
defeating a league of five defending rulers in western Syria, then the next
logical target might be expected to be southern Lebanon, Galilee, and the
Jezreel Valley.  That is, if the mightiest Hittite king of all time were
there to provide the military muscle (and looting opportunities).  The actual,
historical “four kings against the five” took place immediately north of
Canaan.  It transpired just as chapter 14 of Genesis represents, except that 
it
occurred just north of Canaan.  The purpose of chapter 14 of Genesis is to
warn Canaan, Ssur/Tyre, and Egypt that the Hittites, along with local
allies, might next attack Canaan proper, so that it was of critical 
importance for
all of Canaan (along with Egypt) to present a united front against the
dreaded Hittites.

One of the important historical reasons why the early Hebrews considered
themselves divinely blessed was that on a semi-miraculous basis, and against
the odds, the mighty Hittites decided against ever making any conquests south
of the northern half of Lebanon.  After that very brief, but
ultra-terrifying, moment in the mid-14th century BCE had passed, the early 
Hebrews enjoyed
almost 500 years of basically being left alone.  No wonder that the
historical story of the terrifying year when the very existence of the early
Hebrews was gravely threatened by the unstoppable Hittites was never 
forgotten by
the Hebrews, and is right there at Genesis 14: 1-11 in the received text to
this very day.

But on this thread, I am trying to concentrate on the linguistic match of
MLK (LM at Genesis 14: 1, 9 in defective spelling to the unique title of
kings of Ugarit:

MLK (LM.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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