Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

1.  The word Bela as a proper name [of a town], BL(, only appears at 
Genesis 14: 2, in the following phrase:  “Bela (that is, Zoar)”.  No name of 
a 
ruler of Bela/Zoar is given.
 
The name Bela/BL( may be a Hebrew nickname that is clever Hebrew wordplay 
on two different words.  BLL usually means “to mingle”, but it can mean “to 
feed provender (to livestock)” [Judges 19: 21].  BL( means “to devour”, or “
to ravenously consume” [Genesis 41: 7, 24].  Note that feed can be 
ravenously devoured by livestock.
 
On the positive side, this town is a “small”/Zoar/C(R agricultural town 
that produces grain used to feed livestock/BLL.  Yet the fear, both at 
Genesis 
14: 1-11 and Genesis 19: 20-22, is that this “small”/Zoar/C(R town, which 
produces grain to feed livestock/BLL, may be “devoured”/BL(.
 
2.  By contrast to the foregoing, here is the standard scholarly 
explanation of the phrase “Bela (that is, Zoar)”:
 
“[T]he explanatory phrase ‘that is, Zoar’ (vv 2, 8) is the first of 
several glosses in this chapter, indicating that this chapter is based on an 
old 
source that has been updated (cf. v. 4).”
 
Gordon Wenham, “Genesis 1-15” (1987), at p. 310
 
As is so often the case, the scholarly “explanation” makes no sense on any 
level.  Why would two different authors, in two different centuries, each 
of whom is making up an allegedly fictional story, (a) come up with two 
different names for the same town, yet (b) neither author comes up with any 
name 
at all for the ruler of this town?!
 
3.  As opposed to the foregoing scholarly “explanation”, consider the 
following historical explanation, which sees Genesis 14: 1-11 as having 
pinpoint 
historical accuracy.  In the approximately 350 Amarna Letters, the only 
place that does not have a ruler is Tunip, a “small” place that is one of the 
5 losing rebellious parties that was historically “devoured” in a “valley 
of tilled fields”, that is the Orontes River Valley in west-central Syria, in 
Year 14.  Likewise, Bela/Zoar is the only one of 9 contending parties at 
Genesis 14: 1-2 that has no named ruler, and which is a “small”/Zoar/C(R 
place, and that is one of the 5 losing rebellious parties that was “devoured”
/BL( in a Valley of Tilled Fields [Valley of Siddim/$DYM], in Year 14.  
 
The pinpoint historical accuracy of Genesis 14: 1-11 is astounding.  The 
Hebrew author even knows that one small [C(R] member of the league of 5 
rebellious parties, in a valley of tilled fields [$DYM] (where grain was 
grown to 
feed livestock [BLL]), had, very oddly, no ruler when the traumatic events 
of the fighting in Year 14 occurred, in which all five members of that league 
were devoured [BL(] by four attacking rulers, one of whom had a Hittite 
kingly name.  The key historical detail here is the peculiar lack of a ruler 
for that one member of that league.  Neat!
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois