Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Zuzim = Z-W-Z + YM
 
I have recently come up with a new linguistic analysis of ZWZ-YM at Genesis 
14: 5 [traditionally transliterated as “Zuzim”].  Since this seems to be a 
foreign name, it is unlikely that a later editor would have added in that 
interior vav/W as a plene spelling update.  Rather, there’s probably a 
3-letter, 3-syllable root of this foreign name, namely:  Z-W-Z.
 
At Nuzi, we find the following name [at p. 182b of Gelb, Purves, MacRae, “
Nuzi Personal Names” (1943)]. 
 
Zu-U-zu
 
I have used a capital U here to represent a U with an acute accent.  It’s 
hard to explain exactly what that acute accent means, other than that it’s a 
different cuneiform sign than a regular U.  So we see that it’s a separate 
syllable of its own, and it’s a different cuneiform sign than a regular U.  
Whether it was accented or not, or had a different sound than a regular u, is 
not so clear.  But what is clear is that in the name Zu-U-zu at Nuzi, the U 
with an acute accent is very, very prominent.  If the early Hebrew author 
heard Zu-U-zu in Hurrian, he would be expected to record that in Hebrew as 
Z-W-Z.  It’s a 3-syllable name:  Z-W-Z = Zu-U-zu.  Note how critically 
important that interior vav/W is.
 
Of relevance in evaluating Z-W-Z + YM at Genesis 14: 5 is the question of 
whether these zu-u-zu people lived “in these (parts)”, that is, B-HM.  There 
is no city named “Ham” in the ancient or medieval world, nor indeed any 
city in greater ancient Canaan whose name begins with a he/H.  So we should 
probably view HM as meaning “these” or “them”, which is the meaning it has 
44 other times in the Bible, instead of uniquely having the impossible 
meaning of “Ham” at Genesis 14: 5.
 
Instead of the ZWZYM/Z-W-Z + YM at Genesis 14: 5 being “giants” per 
Deuteronomy [the majority scholarly view] or the “Shasu” [the minority 
scholarly 
view] at Ham, under my new analysis we should view the Zuzim as being “the 
Zu-U-zu people” who lived “in these (parts)”, that is, at and near 
Ashteroth.  The next step would then be to ask which historical people in the 
Transjordan the early Hebrew author would have called Z-W-Z + YM, and why he 
would 
have chosen that particular nomenclature for those people.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois