Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Uri Hurwitz:
 
You wrote:  “The name [the ending of “Jerusalem”] probably originated, in 
part, with the name $LM, a Ugaritic deity. This can be supported in Gen. 
14:18 in the reference to Malchizedek, king of Shalem.”
 
1.  Melchizedek is not a king or ruler or princeling.  He has taken no part 
in the fighting, yet the fighters make a large tithe to him.  Melchizedek is 
exclusively a priest, not a priest-king, or a priest who is also a ruler.
 
2.  This priest should be viewed as having a double name:  
 
MLK-Y-CDQ MLK-$LM
 
The MLK/“king” is not a reference to a princeling ruler, much less to the 
priest Melchizedek being a princeling ruler.  No, “king” means “King”, that 
is “(Divine) King”.
 
Melchizedek is a high priest whose deity, his name proclaims, is both (i) 
King of Righteous Victory, and (ii) King of Safety.  $LM at Genesis 14: 18 
has nothing to do with Jerusalem, but rather is the common word for “safety, 
peace, protection”, which often was a divine attribute.
 
3.  The geographical words that the Biblical text uses are absolutely 
incompatible with Jerusalem, while fitting Beth Shan perfectly in all 
respects.
 
(a)  M$QH, at Genesis 13: 10.  The Jezreel Valley, the site of Beth Shan, is 
“well-watered”, being a farmer’s paradise and the best agricultural land in 
Canaan.  Jerusalem has plenty of drinking water for city inhabitants, but is 
not M$QH, not being a prime agricultural area.
 
(b)  (MQ H-%DYM, at Genesis 14: 3.  The quintessential “valley of tilled 
fields” in Canaan is of course the Jezreel Valley, the site of Beth Shan.  
There is no valley of tilled fields at or near Jerusalem.
 
(c)  $WH, at Genesis 14: 17.  The famous “level plain” in Canaan is of course 
the Esdraelon Plain, which is the Jezreel Valley, on the east end of which 
sits Beth Shan.  There is no “level plain” at or near Jerusalem, which as 
everyone knows is situated in the heart of hilly hill country.
 
4.  Since nothing about Melchizedek fits Jerusalem, and everything about 
Melchizedek fits Beth Shan, we should be able to recognize Melchizedek as 
being the high priest of the cult of Mekal, at the famous Temple of Mekal at 
Beth Shan in the mid-14th century BCE.  Mekal was claimed to be the “king” of 
both “righteous victory”/CDQ and “safety”/$LM.  Abraham starts with those 
pagan concepts concerning Mekal, and then brilliantly presents them in terms 
that could apply to almost all religious views of the period, including early 
Judaism.  For example, certainly YHWH is a “king” of both “righteous 
victory”/CDQ and “safety”/$LM.  Abraham diplomatically does not diss Mekal, 
because Abraham is trying at that point to unite the ancient near east south 
of northern Lebanon into a grand anti-Hittite United Front, so that the “four 
kings against five” historical disaster [total victory by the dreaded 
Hittites, under “Tidal”/Suppiluliuma I] up north would not be repeated down 
south in Canaan itself.
 
5.  Your comparison to Ugarit cuts against your position, when you write:  
“The name probably originated, in part, with the name $LM, a Ugaritic deity.” 
 No, at Ugarit, $lm is probably an attribute of a god, not the name of a god:
 
“slm.  This root, ‘to be well, at peace’, appears in many West Semitic names 
of all periods.  Compare $lm at Ugarit (Grondahl 1967: 193) and in Phoenician 
(Benz 1972: 180) and Aramaic (Maraqten 1988: 102).  This may be a sentence 
name that was shortened by omission of the divine name.”  Richard S. Hess, in 
K. Lawson Younger, editor, “Ugarit at 75” (2007), at p. 119.   
 
6.  Note that it was routine in the Late Bronze Age for a name to feature 
$LM, meaning “safety, peace, protection”, which routinely was an attribute of 
a deity, while not being the name of a deity.  [Indeed, the literal proper  
n-a-m-e  of a deity usually does not appear in people’s names, whereas by 
contrast, paeans to a pagan deity are ubiquitous in the names of people in 
the ancient world.]  Thus it should be no real surprise that the second half 
of Melchizedek’s long, double name features $LM:  MLK-$LM.  That’s not saying 
that priest Melchizedek was the princeling ruler of Jerusalem!  [That honor 
belonged to IR-Heba.]  Rather, that is simply the second half of the priest 
Melchizedek’s double name. 
 
7.  $LM at Genesis 14: 18 has nothing to do with Jerusalem, but rather is a 
common attribute of deities meaning “safety, peace, protection”, which is 
often found in Late Bronze Age names.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois