Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

James Christian:
 
Genesis 13: 10 tells us that Lot looked at the KKR of the YRDN, which would 
be the Greater Jordan River Valley, to the north.  From a mountaintop just 
east of Bethel, one has a panoramic view north, seeing the thin line of the 
Jordan River to the north, and off in the far distance north is magnificent 
Mt. Hermon.  Meanwhile, you can’t see south at all, because the tall hills 
of hill country south of Bethel totally block the view.  Maybe you could 
glimpse the northernmost edge of the Dead Sea, but no farther south.
 
Probably all that Lot could literally see was the Jordan River itself to 
the north, and Mt. Hermon in the distance.  Lot could probably not literally 
see (i) the tops of the impressive Egyptian and Canaanite temples at Beth 
Shan, just north of Rehov, (ii) the agricultural town of Rehov itself, which 
was located by the wonderful tilled fields of the fertile Jezreel Valley, and 
thus might appropriately be nicknamed “Fields”, or (iii) the eastern end of 
the low-lying Jezreel Valley.  But Lot, having just passed by that 
territory about a month earlier, in coming to Canaan from Harran, knew that 
all of 
those things were there.  Lot knew that the eastern half of the Jezreel 
Valley was part of the Greater Jordan River Valley.  Lot also knew that the 
Jezreel Valley was the finest farmland in all of Canaan, having the best 
tilled “
fields”, and that such great farmland supported relatively wealthy, though 
not huge, 5 prosperous agricultural cities throughout the fertile Jezreel 
Valley:  Rehov, Afulah, Afulah the Small, Jezreel, and Megiddo.
 
The next word at Genesis 13: 10 is M$QH.  In context, that must refer to 
the well-watered eastern Jezreel Valley, which was the only place in Canaan 
that was as lush as the fertile land along the Nile River itself in Egypt, 
which Genesis 13: 10 references.  Lot decides to live the soft life.  The 
place 
to live the soft life was in the richest part of Canaan, which was nowhere 
in the general vicinity of the Dead Sea, but which rather was the eastern 
Jezreel Valley, being part of the Greater Jordan Valley/KKR YRDN, which so 
obviously was well-watered/M$QH.  So the clues at Genesis 13: 10 strongly 
suggest that one of the historical cities that Sodom/“Fields” represents is 
Rehov up north, located just south of Beth Shan on the southeastern corner of 
the fine “fields” of the Valley of Fields, the fertile Jezreel Valley.
 
If we’re talking about the fertile Jezreel Valley up north, then we’re 
getting close to Hittite country up north, as opposed to the Dead Sea down 
south, which would never have been threatened by a ruler with the Hittite 
kingly 
name/nickname “Tidal”.  Chapter 14 of Genesis is  w-a-r-n-i-n-g  that if 
all of Canaan does not unite to stop the Hittite threat, then the 5 lovely 
small agricultural cities of the fertile Jezreel Valley (per the etymologies 
in my prior post) may suffer the same fate next year that Qatna historically 
suffered last year in Year 14:  being burned to the ground, setting off a 
huge cloud of smoke, and never being reinhabited.  The sophisticated style of 
Genesis 14: 1-11 is to simultaneously report what happened historically just 
north of Canaan last year, in Year 14, while at the same time warning that 
the same dire fate could befall Canaan itself south of Lebanon unless all 
people of Canaan, and Egypt, united to resist the dreaded Hittites.
 
Jim Stinehart