Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Rob Acosta:
 
If the moderators will allow a new thread on the “four kings against five”
, I would be delighted to address the issues you have raised.
 
There have been some recent developments on scholarly views as to the 
timing and circumstances of the destruction of Qatna in the Late Bronze Age.  
In 
light of those new scholarly findings [which I believe were not known when I 
posted on Qatna years ago], I provisionally withdraw all of my previous 
comments about Qatna [pending an examination of the new information out there 
about the destruction of Qatna].  But Qatna in any event is a very minor 
element of my theory of the case.  Rather, what is of critical importance to 
my 
theory of the case are several of the other items that you mention, in 
particular the identification of the 9 contending parties in the “four kings 
against five”.
 
In order to keep this post fairly short, I will only discuss the historical 
identities of the four attacking rulers.  The Bible presents four attacking 
rulers at Genesis 14: 1, 9.  One has a kingly Hittite name, “Tidal”, 
suitable as a pejorative Patriarchal nickname for mighty Hittite King 
Suppiluliuma, who had seized the Hittite throne by murdering his own brother 
named “
Tidal”.  One has a Hurrian name, “Arioch”, suitable as a pejorative 
Patriarchal nickname for the Hurrian princeling ruler of Qadesh on the 
Orontes;  in 
Hurrian, “Arioch” can be viewed as implying “the son of a Hurrian lord, not 
the father”, which references the fact that Etakkama left his father in the 
lurch in eastern Anatolia and returned to Syria as a Hittite partisan to 
claim his patrimony of Qadesh on the Orontes.  One has a west Semitic name, 
Amrapel, suitable as a pejorative Patriarchal nickname for the west 
Semitic-speaking ruler of Amurru, as its west Semitic meaning is “Amorite 
Splittest”, 
and Aziru split off Amurru from the rest of Canaan and sold out to 
Hittite-dominated Syria.  Finally, KDRL(MR (LM is a suitable pejorative 
Patriarchal 
nickname for King Niqmaddu II of Ugarit, because it means, in Ugaritic [kdr l 
(mr (lm]:  “sacred vessel (falls) into excrement -- all the previous kings 
of Ugarit”, referring to the historical fact that Niqmaddu sold out the 
previous independence of Ugarit to the Hittites as the opening act of the 
Great 
Syrian War, so that the kings of Ugarit would never be independent again.
 
Your post raises the key question of whether, as a point of historical 
fact, those four rulers were indeed the four attacking rulers in the Great 
Syrian War in western Syria, which I see as being the historical counterpart 
of 
the “four kings against five” at Genesis 14: 1-11.  Since you seem to be 
raising mostly historical questions here, even though on the b-hebrew list we 
usually discuss linguistic issues [such as why the above four names, in their 
different languages, have the pejorative meanings I have described], let me 
simply quote here one of the best-known English-speaking authorities on the 
Great Syrian War in western Syria.  His classic text on Canaan is 
admittedly getting a little old now, and does not reflect the latest findings 
concerning Qatna.  Also, I realize that many aspects of the Great Syrian War 
are 
debated by historians.  But one of the few items of agreement among 
historians 
of the period is who the four attacking rulers were in the Great Syrian War 
in western Syria [and the recent findings regarding Qatna have not changed 
that].
 
Donald B. Redford, “Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times” (1992), at 
pp. 175-176: 
 
“Suppiluliumas came himself to Alalakh, and Niqmaddu dutifully crossed the 
Orontes and prostrated himself before the great [Hittite] king.  Ugarit had 
voluntarily seceded from Egypt [and had inaugurated the Great Syrian War in 
western Syria by selling out to the Hittites, in the face of attacks from 
five neighboring Hurrian princelings].  …Etakama, determined to rehabilitate 
his image with Suppiluliumas, led a small detachment of Hittite troops to 
ravage the district.  …Aziru sent his own troops to assist Etakama against 
Amki 
and Upe, and he himself occupied Tunip.”
 
So we see who are the four attacking rulers in the Great Syrian War in 
western Syria:  (i) Hittite King Suppiluliuma [Biblical nickname “Tidal”, a 
Hittite name];  (ii) Ugaritic King Niqmaddu [Biblical nickname KDRL(MR (LM, a 
curse in Ugaritic];  (iii) Hurrian princeling Etakkama of Qadesh on the 
Orontes [Biblical nickname “Arioch”, a Hurrian name];  and (iv) the west 
Semitic-speaking Amorite ruler of Amurru, Aziru [Biblical nickname “Amrapel”, 
a 
west Semitic name].
 
The most accessible original source to confirm the foregoing analysis is 
Amarna Letter EA 197, which references 3 of the 4 attacking rulers by name, 
and identifies them as being inimical to the interests of Egypt in the 
greater 
Canaan area.  [That Amarna Letter does not mention Ugarit or its king, but 
everyone agrees that the opening act of the Great Syrian War in western 
Syria is when Niqmaddu shocked the world by inviting mighty Hittite King 
Suppiluliuma into Syria.]
 
On the b-hebrew list, my main point has been the linguistic contention that 
the ethnicities of the historical four attacking rulers in the Great Syrian 
War in western Syria are exact matches to the languages used by the early 
Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives in creating pejorative Biblical 
nicknames for the four attacking rulers at Genesis 14: 1-11:  one Hittite, 
one Ugaritic, one Hurrian, and one Amorite.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois