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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] City Nicknames
  • Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:10:30 EST


In unpointed text, $WR cannot be distinguished graphically from %WR. $WR
and %WR have many different meanings in Hebrew, including “wall”. Note,
however, that per Gesenius, $WR at Ezekiel 27: 25 means “to go round, to go
about, to journey”, and at I Chronicles 20: 3, %WR means “to saw”.

Per Gesenius, GRR means “sojourning” or “to saw”.

Thus $WR/%WR and GRR share two meanings: (i) “to go round, to go about, to
journey”/“sojourning” and (ii) “to saw”.

Finally, GWR is used at 9 places in the Patriarchal narratives to mean “to
sojourn”.

The last three words at Genesis 20: 1 are (i) %WR [or $WR], (ii) GWR [in
the form YGR], and (iii) GRR. On the level of clever Hebrew wordplay [though
not on the level of the main meaning], that might be loosely and
lightheartedly translated as: “Sojourning-place, sojourning at the
Sojourning-place”.

My serious point here is that the early Hebrew author of Genesis 20: 1 may
have had a literary reason to use nicknames at Genesis 20: 1. On one level,
the nicknames sound a lot like [though they are by no means identical to]
the historical names. But on another, literary level, these nicknames all
mean “sojourn”.

People insist that if the early Hebrew author had meant GLL [prior to the
plene spelling GLYL], then certainly he would have said GLL, not GRR. But
the two have a somewhat similar sound, arguably being close enough for a
nickname/pun. [The Egyptians, for example, did not distinguish between L and
R.]
The advantage of using such nickname was to have the last two words at
Genesis 20: 1 be GWR GRR, where both mean “sojourn”.

And people insist that if the early Hebrew author had meant CWR, then
certainly he would have said CWR, not %WR [or $WR]. But the two have a
somewhat
similar sound, arguably being close enough for a nickname/pun, and the
advantage of using such nickname was to have the last three words at Genesis
20:
1 be %WR GWR GRR, where all three mean “sojourn”, thereby neatly
emphasizing that the life of the tent-dwelling Patriarchs was a life of
sojourning.

My point is that when we see super-clever Hebrew wordplay like that in the
last three words of Genesis 20: 1, we should rightly be suspicious that
maybe the early Hebrew author, the finest Hebrew wordsmith of all time, is
using
nicknames, not historical names, for these geographical place names. No
%WR or $WR, and no GRR, is attested in any non-biblical source as a
geographical place name, whereas CWR and GLL/GLYL are two of the best-known
geographical place names of all time. More importantly, CWR is well-attested
up north
in Galilee in the Amarna Letters, and GLL is attested up north as being
Galilee in the Egyptian form of KRR at item #80 on the mid-15th century BCE
Thutmose III list. %WR and CWR are close enough in sound to be a pun, and
GRR
and GLL are also close enough in sound to be a pun. If people demand to
know w-h-y the early Hebrew author didn’t simply write CWR and GLL if
that’s
what he meant, the answer is that by choosing the nicknames for CWR and GLL
that he brilliantly chose, namely %WR and GRR, the author of the
Patriarchal narratives was thereby able to have the last three words of
Genesis 20: 1
all mean, at a literary level, “sojourn”: %WR GWR GRR, in the form of %WR
W-YGR B-GRR.

NGB and QD$ at Genesis 20: 1 are nicknames as well. NGB was not used until
the 1st millennium BCE to refer to the Negev Desert. I see NGB as
referring to a city, Adamah-Negev or Adamah-Neqev, in eastern Lower Galilee
at item
#57 on the Thutmose III list. Thus whether one went north from the
Patriarchs’ “Hebron” [along the Jordan River] or south, one would go through
the
land of NGB: either the area near the city of NGB in eastern Lower Galilee,
or the Negev Desert.

As to QD$, there’s no place in the southern wilderness or the Sinai with
the attested name QD$ in the ancient world. Rather, QD$ at Genesis 20: 1 is
an abbreviated version of QD$N, the historical Late Bronze Age name of a
well-known city in eastern Upper Galilee. In other languages that city name
is
Ka-du-u-$a-na [cf. the Mitanni Letter IV-31], or Gudda$una [Amarna Letter EA
177], or k-t-su-na [item #4 on the T III list]. [Interestingly, qof/Q, as
in Biblical QD$, is likely the ideal first letter here, if all these names
ultimately derive from Akkadian qat, which can have the forms qati or
qati$una, where Hurrian either did not have qof/Q or at least did not
distinguish
it in writing from kaf/K, and K and G often interchange in both Hurrian and
Egyptian.] By using the abbreviated form QD$ [instead of QD$N], this is a
great pun at Genesis 20: 1, where QD$ is not only the proper name of a city,
but is also the Hebrew common word that means “holy spot”. [This same
linguistic gambit is used in Ugaritic mythology, where qd$ is used as the
Ugaritic name/nickname of this city.] By using the abbreviated
version/nickname
QD$ [having dropped the suffix -N], the author deftly implies that Galilee is
a “holy spot” for the early Hebrews, where Isaac will be born.

One logical route for Abraham to take in going to Galilee would be to
travel north along the Jordan River, through the country of NGB/Adamah-Negev,
that is, eastern Lower Galilee, and then sojourn between QD$ [QD$ of eastern
Upper Galilee, often transliterated as “Kedesh” per medieval pointing] and “
%WR” [that is, historical CWR, the wealthy island city-state of “Tyre” just
off the northwest corner of Upper Galilee], in GRR, that is, in
GLL/GLYL/Galilee. That’s precisely what Genesis 20: 1 says, once one
understands how
the early Hebrew author is deftly using nicknames. Since Abraham knows that
Sarah will bear Isaac in less than 12 months, Abraham definitely would not
choose that point in time to begin sojourning in or near the desolate Sinai
Desert. Rather, lovely Galilee is the rational choice. In the next
generation, Isaac will raise a bumper crop of wheat in fertile Galilee and
become
wealthy there. Genesis 26: 12. There’s no reason for the Patriarchs to be
sojourning in the semi-desolate land on the southern fringe of Canaan [as
Ezra,
with the help of (or as) the post-exilic author of Chronicles, would
shrewdly reinterpret this text almost a thousand years later, in order to
make the
Patriarchs more appealing to the southern Hebrews in post-exilic
Jerusalem]. Lovely Galilee beckons up north. The Patriarchs think nothing
of going
far north and far east to Naharim in eastern Syria, so certainly a
journey/%WR/GWR/GRR to nearby Galilee was feasible for them.

You see, a-l-l of the geographical place names in Genesis 20: 1 are
nicknames -- NGB and QD$ and %WR and GRR -- for places well known in Late
Bronze
Age Galilee. All four of those nicknames are there for a purpose. In
particular, (i) QD$ implies that this new place to sojourn is a “holy spot”,
and
(ii) %WR GWR GRR is a three-fold emphasis that the Patriarchs were “
sojourners”. But it’s all happening in lovely Galilee, not in the austere
southern wilderness.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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