Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Jim, you've written all of this before. Please stop repeating yourself.

Yigal Levin

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of jimstinehart AT aol.com
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 4:30 AM
To: JimStinehart AT aol.com; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] City Nicknames


No city in the Sinai Desert or the southern wilderness has an attested name 
similar to QD$. But if the QD$ at Genesis 20: 1 may possibly be a slight 
variant of [or nickname for] the historical name of the historical city of 
QD$ in eastern Upper Galilee, where in the mid-14th century BCE there was a 
strong Hurrian presence [the “Amalekites” at Genesis 14: 7, and Yamiuta as 
its Hurrian princeling ruler at Amarna Letter EA 177], then consider the 
following proposed etymology for QD$ as a city name.
 
1.  In the beginning was the Akkadian name, ina qati$unu.  It means “in their 
hands” or “under their command”, and as a city name the implied meaning would 
be:  “under the command of the gods”.  [In this post we will focus solely on 
the qati$unu element (though Genesis 14: 7 reflects as well the ina element).]
 
2.  The Hurrians pronounced qof/Q as kaf/K, so as a Hurrian city name once 
the Hurrians dominated this city [perhaps as early as the mid-15th century 
BCE], it would be ka-du-u-$a-na.  [T and D are often interchangeable in 
Hurrian.]  Cf. Amarna Letter EA 24, in Hurrian, at IV: 31, where we see 
ka-du-u-$a-a-a$-$a-na;  the -a-a$-$a- element is an intensifier and could be 
omitted, leaving:  ka-du-u-$a-na.
 
3.  The Egyptians picked up the Hurrian sound, not the etymology, and 
recorded k-t-su-na at item #4 on the mid-15th century BCE Thutmose III list.  
K-t-su-na in Egyptian is close to ka-du-u-$a-na in Hurrian.
 
4.  By contrast to the Egyptians, the Hebrews picked up the etymology (not 
the Hurrian sound), and ordinarily would have written QD$N.  QD$N in Hebrew 
is very close to qati$unu in Akkadian, and is quite close as well to 
ka-du-u-$a-na in Hurrian.
 
But at Genesis 20: 1, the early Hebrew author wanted to portray Galilee as 
being a “holy spot” for the Patriarchs, so as a pun/nickname/abbreviated 
version, he lopped off the -N in QD$N [which to a Hebrew sounded like an 
optional ending anyway], and wrote down QD$.  It’s a natural pun in west 
Semitic. In Ugaritic mythology, Danel likewise operates at qd$, though the 
full city name would ordinarily be expected to be qd$n in Ugaritic.  So QD$ 
in the received text of Genesis 20: 1 (i) is an abbreviated form of the 
historical city name QD$N, and (ii) is also the Hebrew common word “holy 
spot”.
 
5.  The Amarna Letters are substandard Akkadian.  The scribe at Amarna Letter 
EA 177 didn’t know the etymology [Q], and as to sound, he confused Hurrian K 
with Hurrian G [two letters that are closely related in Hurrian].  So he 
wrote Gudda$una.
 
*       *       *
 
The spelling differences are quite predictable in these various languages.  
These are all slight variations on the same city name:  qati$unu [Akkadian] 
vs. ka-du-u-$a-na [Hurrian] vs. k-t-su-na [attested city name in Egyptian] 
vs. QD$N [normal Hebrew, but not in Bible] vs. QD$ [shortened Biblical form] 
vs. Gudda$una [attested city name in Amarna Letters].  There is no place with 
an attested name anything like this in the Sinai Desert or the southern 
wilderness.  But these names are attested both on the T III list and in the 
Amarna Letters, as slight variations of the Biblical shortform name of this 
city in eastern Upper Galilee.  That’s the historical QD$ in eastern Upper 
Galilee being referenced at Genesis 20: 1.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois



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