Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

XBH is used five times in the Bible, being a common word meaning “to hide”
.  XBH never has an interior vav/W.  At Genesis 14: 15 we see the only 
appearance of XWBH, in context clearly being a geographical place name.  This 
is 
usually explained as being a west Semitic name meaning “hiding place”, 
based on XBH.  But note the interior vav/W in XWBH.  The common word XBH/“to 
hide
” by contrast never has an interior vav/W in the Bible.
 
Consider also that no city north of, or near, Damascus is known to have a 
name anything like XWBH.
 
Rather, in talking about Damascus, what we would logically expect is a 
reference to Upu, or some variant thereof, such as Ubu or Ube or Upi or Apu 
or 
Api or Apum or Apina.  The Damascus area was invariably called Upu (or some 
variant thereof) throughout the Bronze Age.  Indeed, only in the Late Bronze 
Age do we begin to see the name “Damascus”, now used in conjunction with 
Upu, whereas before that, one only sees Upu.
 
If chapter 14 of Genesis means to reference the land of Upu, we would 
expect Hebrew to use the definite article.  Thus at Joshua 11: 3 we see “land 
the 
Mizpeh”, with the Hebrew definite article:  )RC H-MCPH.  [That is exactly 
parallel to Amarna Letter EA 189, reverse 12, where we see in Akkadian “KUR 
upi”, meaning “land Upi”, where Akkadian, however, unlike Hebrew, has no 
definite article.]
 
With P and B often being interchangeable in going from one ancient language 
to another, we would expect Genesis 14: 15 to say something like H-WBH, 
where H- means “the”, and WBH is one likely Hebrew spelling of Ubu or Ube or 
Upe or Upu or Upi or Apu or Api or Apum or Apina.  Has there been a 
one-letter transcription error here? 
 
HWBH does not really seem possible, because not a single city name in 
greater ancient Canaan begins with he/H.  [That’s why HM at Genesis 14: 5 
cannot 
be “(the city of) Ham”.]  WBH does not seem to make sense in Hebrew either, 
because no word or name in the Bible begins with a vav/W as a vowel.  [In 
Akkadian, however, Apu makes perfect sense as meaning “reed thicket”, where 
the first letter is a true vowel.]  So almost inevitably what should have 
been H-WBH became, via a one-letter scribal error, XWBH.  The Akkadian name 
the Upu/Apu, in the form of H-WBH, was erroneously viewed by a later scribe 
as 
being the west Semitic name XWBH, based on XBH as a Hebrew common word. 
 
In my opinion, the XWBH we see in the received text of Genesis 14: 15 has a 
[fully understandable] one-letter scribal error.  Originally, the text read 
H-WBH, and was a reference to “the Upu”, that is, a Bronze Age reference 
to the land that includes, and that extends north of, Damascus.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois