Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

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