Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

We can now sum up our examination of Beersheba in chapter 26 of Genesis, 
and the related locales of Beer Laxi-Rai and Gerar.
 
1.  Beer Laxi-Rai
 
Since Isaac sojourns for 30 years here, and there is never any talk of 
hardship in this locale (until a widespread famine-drought hits the area), 
the 
conventional view cannot be right that Beer Laxi-Rai is located in the truly 
bleak eastern Sinai Desert.  Rather, everything that is said in the Biblical 
text about Beer Laxi-Rai fits the Lachish Valley perfectly, including Laxi 
having a similar sound to Lachi in Lachi-sha.  It makes no sense to think 
that lovely young Rebecca was taken all the long way from Naharim in eastern 
Syria through lovely Canaan and then dumped in the eastern Sinai Desert, 
where Isaac was walking in one of his fields.  There are no fields in the 
Sinai! 
 Rather, Rebecca was rightly and proudly taken to the fertile Lachish 
Valley in Canaan proper, the agricultural heartland of the future state of 
Judah.
 
2.  Gerar
 
Since southwest Canaan is not a wheat-growing region and there’s no place 
with a name like GRR there in the ancient world, the conventional view cannot 
be right that Isaac gets rich growing wheat at an unattested place in 
southwest Canaan.  Rather, GRR is gararu, being the Late Bronze Age spelling 
of 
Galilee.  Note that (a) GRR/Upper Galilee is far away from where 
drought-famine hits Beer Laxi-Rai/the Lachish Valley, but equally 
importantly, (b)  
b-o-t-h  such places are in the Promised Land of Canaan proper.  Genesis 26: 
1-6 
requires that.  Although there are wells south of Beersheba of the Negev 
and south of Gaza, there are no wells between the traditional site of Gerar 
and Beersheba of the Negev.  Thus unless each of Abraham and Isaac 
unexpectedly made a huge swing way to the south in leaving the traditional 
site of 
Gerar [rather than, as expected, heading toward Beersheba of the Negev, 
turning 
a 20-mile route into a 40-mile route, in an area where only seasonal wells 
can be dug], they could not have dug a series of wells between the 
traditional site of Gerar and Beersheba of the Negev.  By stark contrast, 
some of the 
best wells in modern Israel have been dug along the edge of the foothills in 
western Upper Galilee:   “a chain of…wells…along the western Galilee 
foothills”.  Gerald De Gaury, “The New State of Israel” (1952), at p. 216.  
The 
text works perfectly if Abraham and Isaac proceeded south by southeast from 
Sur/Tyre on the northwest corner of Upper Galilee, dug a well about every 6 
miles, and ended up digging the 4th named well up at Beersheba of Galilee, 
with known wells being all along that expected line of the Patriarchs’ 
movements.  Instead of having to force the text [with there being no known 
wells 
between the traditional site of Gerar and Beersheba in the Negev], the text 
neatly foreshadows precisely where modern Israel has in fact built a whole 
series of important wells in western Upper Galilee.
 

3.  Beersheba
 
We know from the blessing sequence in chapter 27 of Genesis that it was 
absolutely routine for Esau to bag savory big game at a “Beersheba”.  That 
could not happen at Beersheba of the Negev, which is in a semi-arid locale 
where wild game was not a significant part of the diet, but it makes perfect 
sense at Beersheba of Galilee, which adjoined a dense forest/MDBR P)RN.  [It 
was that dense forest that stopped Isaac from going further south.]  The text 
then tells us that Isaac goes “up” to Beersheba, which fits Beersheba of 
Galilee perfectly, since it is located “up” in the foothills of western Upper 
Galilee.  But Beersheba of the Negev is located in the bottom of a drainage 
basin, so one would not go “up” to that southern Beersheba.  [Also, 
Beersheba of the Negev is located southeast of the traditional location of 
Gerar, 
so one would not be figuratively going “up”/north toward Canaan if one took 
anything resembling a normal route from Gerar to Beersheba of the Negev.]
 
The bottom line is that the conventional view is completely wrong about the 
location of all three of these places.  Until and unless we get the 
geography right, these stories in the Patriarchal narratives do not make good 
sense.
 
Please note that in terms of what the text of the Patriarchal narratives 
says in describing the key characteristics of these three places, there is  
n-o-t-h-i-n-g  in the text that fits the traditional locales.  N-o-t-h-i-n-g 
. 
 0 for 3.  Nada.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois