Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

As I suspected. Yet another waste of time bothering to scan read your reply
to see if you had addressed the real issue. Just in case you missed the real
issue I'll repeat it in more simple terms in the hope that this time you
form a reply to it:

BEGINNING OF ISSUE
The account relates that the place was fertile before the destruction.
Context clearly indicates that this is no longer the case because of Yhwh's
intervention. You are not identifying an area in need of an explanation for
why it is now desolate and no longer fertile.
END OF ISSUE

I do hope your next post will acknowledge and even attempt to make a
response to this issue.

James Christian


2010/1/31 <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
>
>