Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

George Athas wrote:  “I think we can leave Hurrian out of this discussion.  
Stick to Hebrew, folks.”
 
The question then is how early Biblical Hebrew handled the “Canaanite Shift” 
for the word that referred to the Damascus area.  Genesis 14: 15 explicitly 
refers to “Damascus”, and then has a mysterious reference, unattested any 
place else in the Bible or in non-biblical sources, to XWBH.  Here is what 
the leading scholar as to ancient Damascus has to say:
 
“The shift of the first vowel from a to o in some areas of Syria-Palestine 
and in Egypt during the Late Bronze Age strongly suggests that the a-vowel 
was accented and long and shifted to o in those areas where the so-called 
Canaanite Shift took place, producing the pronunciation )opu.  Since the 
orthography of the cuneiform script of the Amarna letters had no sign for the 
o sound, we find it written u-pi….[with acute accent over both vowels]  …From 
Egyptian texts of the period comes the spelling )iwp3, which may be vocalized 
as )opa.”  Wayne Thomas Pitard, “Ancient Damascus” (1987), at pp. 10-11.
 
I don’t know if it’s permitted to mention the Egyptian spelling in analyzing 
XWBH at Genesis 14: 15, but use of vav/W for the sound O or U is historically 
attested in the Late Bronze Age in Egyptian, while U2 is used in the Akkadian 
cuneiform of the Amarna Letters.  In testing my view that heth/X in the 
received text of Genesis 14: 15 is a 1st millennium BCE scribal copying 
error, and that the text of Genesis 14: 15 originally had H-WBH, the #1 issue 
seems to be how early Hebrew would have handled the Canaanite Shift.  We know 
that the Amarna Letters wrote U2 in Akkadian cuneiform, and that the 
Egyptians wrote aleph-W:  )iwp3.  To me that supports the early Hebrew author 
of Genesis 14: 15 choosing Hebrew vav/W for the initial vowel, which is its 
own separate syllable, for )opa or U-bi:  WBH.  In Biblical Hebrew, the 
Hebrew word for “the” must precede that, which should be he/H, not heth/X.  
So I see H-WBH as being the original reading of Genesis 14: 15.
 
If I’m right, it’s the first time in over 3,000 years that we’ve understood 
what “Hobah” is referring to in this Biblical text.  If chapter 14 of Genesis 
is really old, dating all the long way back to the Late Bronze Age, so that 
the early Hebrew author knows what he’s talking about, then after a reference 
to “Damascus”, we should properly expect to see a reference to A-pi or O-pi 
or U-bi.  In fact it’s right there at Genesis 14: 15, once the scribal error 
is corrected, so that the first letter is he/H, not heth/X:  H-WBH.  Now, for 
the first time in over 3,000 years, the text makes perfect historical sense.  
 
Historical linguistics can solve a lot of Biblical mysteries like this as to 
Hebrew words in the Bible.  The more one knows about ancient Damascus, the 
clearer it becomes that the XWBH in the received text of Genesis 14: 15 
originally must have been H-WBH.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois










-----Original Message-----
From: George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>
To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tue, Mar 1, 2011 5:55 pm
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hobah


I think we can leave Hurrian out of this discussion. Stick to Hebrew, folks.

EORGE ATHAS
o-Moderator, B-Hebrew
Sydney, Australia)
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