Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Prof. Yigal Levin:
 
1.  You wrote:  “How on earth do you know that Adamah of Josh 19:36 was "a 
fairly big city" while Adami Hanekeb was a "small town"?”
 
I agree that there were no big cities in the area yet [which indeed is one 
essential part of my overall analysis, as will become apparent].  I see the 
place whose name is in masculine construct plural as being a village with a 
generic name, with such name being shared by another place in the general 
neighborhood.  As backdrop to my analysis, please take a look at the 
excellent 
map of Lower Galilee here:
_http://truthandpurpose.com/2008/09/where-jesus-grew-up-a-study-of-lower-gal
ilee/_ 
(http://truthandpurpose.com/2008/09/where-jesus-grew-up-a-study-of-lower-galilee/)
 
I associate the Adamah of Joshua 19: 36 with Tel Adami on that map, and I 
associate the Adami Nekeb of Joshua 19: 33 with the Kh. Ed Damiyeh on that 
map.  One basis for that is that I see )DMY H-NGB as being the same place as 
)DMY H-NQB, with NGB referring to the fact that Ed Damiyeh is a few miles “
south” of Tel Adami.  Also, you can see from that map the critical fact that 
Ed Damiyeh has a strategic location at a “pipe”/socket/narrow passageway, 
which would make sense for NQB.  At Joshua 19 these two places are mentioned 
in quick succession, which makes sense for them being close together.  The 
key is a village, having a generic proper name rendered here in masculine 
construct plural, which has a strategic location at a “pipe”/socket/narrow 
passageway, where there were no big cities in the area at the time.
 
2.  You wrote:  “For that matter, how do you know that Adami Hanekeb was a 
town at all?  The context in which it appears, that of border descriptions, 
often mentions topographical object other than towns. That very same verse 
mentions "the Jordan" - the river.”
 
That’s actually the single most important issue on this thread.  Where 
there were no big cities in the area at the time, but a locale had a 
strategic 
location at a “pipe”/socket/narrow passageway, then the following is likely 
and predictable.  There will be a village at that strategic location.  It’s 
name likely will be a generic name, oftentimes based on the local 
topography.  As such, there will often be one or two other villages in the 
same 
general area, though not having a strategic location, that will have the same 
or 
similar generic names based on the local topography.  If the one village with 
the strategic location is small enough, then scholars often mistakenly 
think that the place name, which uses construct plural, is exclusively 
referring 
to the local topography itself, rather than referencing the following two 
key facts:  (i) there were several villages in the neighborhood with the same 
or similar generic proper names, reflected by the plural aspect of the 
plural construct form, but (ii) the Biblical author means to refer solely to 
the 
 o-n-e  village with a generic name that had a strategic location at a “pipe
”/socket/narrow passageway.
 
Per the map I referenced above, there were two places with generic names 
that seem based on Adam in eastern Lower Galilee.  In order to determine that 
both were cities, towns or villages, we can go back in time to the mid-15th 
century BCE Thutmose III list of places in Canaan.  There we seem to see 
both of these two places:  )a-ta-m-m at #36, as to which Anson Rainey 
comments “
)DMY HNQB”;  and $a-ma-$u )a-tu-ma at #51, as to which Anson Rainey, 
focusing on )a-tu-ma, comments:  “)DMH?”.  This is a rare case of where a 
mere 
village made it onto the T III list because of its strategic location.  
[Speaking of places that were not big cities in the Bronze Age, which is a 
critical part of my overall analysis, let me just note here that we don’t see 
the 
Beth-horon cities on the T III list or in the Amarna Letters or in the 
Pentateuch, because they did not come into existence until about the 10th 
century 
BCE.]  
 
Why would you think that these items at Joshua 19 or on the T III list are 
a “topographical object other than towns”?  The primary reference is not to 
“red earths of the Nekeb”, which would not make sense, but rather is to 
the proper name of a village that has a strategic location at a “pipe”
/socket/narrow passageway.  No one is surprised that Joshua 19: 33 logically 
ends 
with a reference to the Jordan River, whereas all the previous references in 
that verse are generally viewed as being cities.
 
3(a).  You wrote:  “Assuming that "neqeb" here refers to a "hole" or a 
"breach", perhaps a pass of some kind, I would understand "Adami hanekeb" as 
"the red (or "earth") of the breach".”
 
But you see, that would contradict normal Hebrew grammar.  Don’t you see 
)DMY as being masculine construct plural?  Then where’s the plural element in 
your analysis?  Yes, the idea of a strategic locale near a “hole” or “breach
” or at a “pipe”/socket/narrow passageway is very good, but I see a 
village there which is sensibly referenced in the Bible by using masculine 
construct plural.  If there were no big cities in the area at the time, then 
this 
situation is commonplace in ancient Canaan.  A strategically located village 
had a generic name, sharing that generic name with several other places in 
the general neighborhood, which in turn leads to construct plural format in 
referencing that village with a generic name.  Though that one village might 
have been tiny, nevertheless from a military standpoint, having effective 
control of that village might have been of paramount importance in order to 
control that “pipe”/socket/narrow passageway.  So whenever we see construct 
plural form, we should ask ourselves whether, instead of being a reference 
exclusively to local topography, we are in fact seeing a reference to a 
village with a generic name that had a strategic location at a “pipe”
/socket/narrow passageway, where there were no big cities in the area at the 
time.
 
3(b).  You further wrote:  “Something like "Ma'aleh Adumim" in Josh 15 - 
the red ascent.”
 
I have never seen anyone else take that interpretation.  I believe the 
mainstream scholarly view is that ma-aleh is a common word, meaning “ascent”, 
whereas Adumim by contrast is a proper name.  The Biblical reference to )DMY 
H-NQB is to a village by using the village’s proper name in masculine 
construct plural, where no big cities existed yet in the area, where that 
village 
had a generic name shared by another town in the general area [hence the 
plural aspect of the construct plural form], and where that  o-n-e  village, 
though it may have been quite small, nevertheless was important because it 
had 
a strategic location at a “pipe”/socket/narrow passageway.
 
4.  You wrote:  “In general, analyzing place-names according to standard 
biblical Hebrew grammar is very iffy. Unlike prose, in which the author at 
least is able to carefully choose every phase, place-names are "facts on the 
ground", and who knows what local dialect produced this or that form in what 
period?”
 
That seems to be the point you’ve been driving at all along.  You don’t 
want to see a village with a generic proper name being referenced in 
masculine 
construct plural, where such village had a strategic location at a “pipe”
/socket/narrow passageway, and where there were no big cities yet in the area 
at the time.  But to avoid that, it seems you have to deny the ordinary 
rules of Hebrew grammar.  By contrast, I am saying that construct plural when 
applied to proper names in geographical place names in the Bible has a very 
predictable meaning.  I don’t see any rules of normal Hebrew grammar as being 
broken here.  I see no exceptionalism.  If I get the gist of your argument, 
an argument I often see in scholarly analyses, it is that you are in effect 
saying that when one sees construct plural in a Biblical place name, you 
are entitled to throw away the Hebrew grammar book in the name of “local 
dialect”, because each such name allegedly embodies exceptionalism.  I 
respectfully disagree with that special pleading.  The Biblical authors could 
slightly 
massage west Semitic geographical place names to put them in standard 
Hebrew form.  Let’s first ask what the geographical place name using 
construct 
plural would mean if the  n-o-r-m-a-l  rules of Hebrew grammar applied.  
Isn’t 
that a logical first step to take?
 
I would like to set forth a series of Biblical place names outside of the 
Pentateuch on this thread which, in my opinion, all follow the normal rules 
of Hebrew grammar, and all make perfect sense, with no exceptionalism being 
claimed.  If I can explain a series of place names of this type, then I think 
that may undercut the view that most such place names are sui generis and 
follow few if any recognizable rules.  We shouldn’t rule out in advance, 
should we, the possibility that there might be a village with a generic name 
that is therefore referenced in masculine construct plural, and which had a 
strategic location at a “pipe”/socket/narrow passageway, where there were no 
big cities yet in the area at the time?  I want to set forth a series of 
Biblical place names which, in my opinion, (i) have a proper name in 
construct 
plural form, and (ii) have a predictable meaning that fully accords with 
normal Hebrew grammar, just like )DMY H-NQB.  If I can show enough such 
Biblical 
geographical place names that follow all the normal rules of Hebrew grammar 
that I see as being applicable in these situations, then I think I may be 
able to overcome the scholarly view that most of these place names are sui 
generis and follow no recognizable rules.  Let’s see if the pattern I have 
proposed for understanding )DMY H-NQB applies to a series of similar Biblical 
place names.
  
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois