Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:
 
1.  You wrote:  “What you need to do is to show evidence from within Hebrew 
that Y(R meant other than forest in other Biblical passages.”
 
O.K., I will follow your good advice.  Please consider the word Y(R at 
Isaiah 21: 13.  
 
KJV stays with “forest”, as do the old translations of Darby and Young’s 
Literal.  But then the verse does not make sense:
 
“The burden upon Arabia.  In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge.”
 
There’s no forest in Arabia!
 
JPS1917 seems much more sensible:  “The burden upon Arabia. In the thickets 
in Arabia shall ye lodge….”
 
Perhaps questionable is JPS1985:  “In the scrub, in the steppe, you will 
lodge”.
 
But the modern approach seems sensible to go with translating Y(R as “
thickets”.
 
[New International Version]  “An oracle concerning Arabia:  You caravans of 
Dedanites, who camp in the thickets of Arabia”.
 
[English Standard Version]  The oracle concerning Arabia.  In the thickets 
in Arabia you will lodge….”
 
BDB, though old, seems to give a reasonable explanation of Y(R here:  “
thicket, esp. as symbol of desolation Ho 2: 14;  …thicket-covered heights 
(overgrown with bushes and trees) Mi 3: 12 = Je 26: 18;  also…Is 21: 13 in 
the 
thicket (or bushes, so VB) in Arabia must ye lodge….”
 
As I see it, any word like Y(R that could apply to Arabia cannot have as 
its one and only meaning “forest”.  No way.  There was never a true forest in 
Arabia, that would be “well-wooded”/%(YR.  Rather, it seems obvious that a 
figurative, negative reference to “thickets” is sometimes meant by the 
word Y(R.  
 
Accordingly, the use of Y(R at Ezekiel 20: 46 does not establish that in 
Biblical times, there were forests south of the Dead Sea.  Yes, there were 
thickets south of the Dead Sea, that’s for sure, but not forests, or any 
place 
that was “well-wooded”/%(YR.  The non-Biblical and scientific evidence 
confirms that fact.






2.  As to Biblical analysis, consider that Jacob cannot avoid meeting Esau 
when Jacob prepares to enter Canaan from northern Gilead [east of Shechem].  
In order for that to be the case, Esau must be living at or near the place 
which in the 1st millennium BCE is called Jazer, in the well-wooded hill 
country of the western Transjordan, not too far from Shechem.  Esau cannot be 
living at Mt. Seir, south of the Dead Sea, or else Jacob could easily avoid 
Esau in returning to Canaan from Harran.  The Biblical story works if and 
only if the name of the city of Jazer in the Patriarchal Age was Seir [or 
Shar].  It was!  The ruins of Jazer are called Shar.  Adbi-Heba’s Amarna 
Letter 
EA 288: 26 refers to Seir or Shar.  And item #22 in a group of Transjordanian 
cities on the Thutmose III list is Shar [with an –N suffix].
 
The place referred to as “the hill country of Seir” at Genesis 14: 6 is 
the area near the Transjordanian city later called Jazer, in the well-wooded 
hill country of the western Transjordan.  That’s the only locale that fits 
for Genesis 14: 6, and it’s also the only locale that fits the fact that 
Jacob 
could not avoid meeting Esau in returning to Canaan from Naharima.  Both 
Biblically and historically, that place was called Seir or Shar in the 
Patriarchal Age/Bronze Age.
 
Jim Stinehart


Evanston, Illinois