Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>]

On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:43:26 +0300, Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> 
wrote:
> 
> "Conventional wisdom" is that "Hophra" in Jer. 44:33 is the same as the king
> that the Greek historians call Apries, 4th king of the 26th dynasty, who
> ruled from 589 to 570 BCE. The form "Khepera" is not the name of a king, but
> rather a title of the sun god Re, actually referring to the sacred dung
> beetle. But if you or anyone else think that "Hophra" should be identified
> with someone else, I'm sure that we would all be happy to hear your
> evidence.

There is an Egyptian name Kheper-re` (ḫpr-rˁ), however.

Phonetically, Hebrew H.ophra` can be seen to match pretty closely,
especially if we take the vocalization of the Egyptian form to be something
like Khopi-ra`.

The Greek form Απριης/Apries can also be seen to match such a form,
especially if we take the vocalization of the Egyptian form to be something
like Khapi-re`.  (This is, however, not as straight-forward as the Hebrew
correspondence, since one might reasonably have thought that an initial
Egyptian ḫ/kh would be rendered as χ/kh in Greek.)

The LXX, however, renders the name as Ουαφρη/Ouaphre.  This does not match
the attested Hebrew form particularly well, but matches an Egyptian form
of the name of a Saite Pharaoh Wa'ah-ib-re` (w3ḥ-ỉb-rˁ).

As to what to make of this, I'm not sure.  But, I'll through out the
evidence for what it's worth.

-- 
William Parsons