Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Jerusalem - spelling, in historical perspective

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: uhurwitz AT yahoo.com, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Jerusalem - spelling, in historical perspective
  • Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2011 12:17:12 -0500


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







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page