Biblical Hebrew Forum

[rob acosta <robacosta AT hotmail.com>]

Jim  You wrote:




 'Isn?t
it the presence of one awful Canaanite ruler at Shechem, north of Bethel, and 
one awful Perizzite ruler at Jerusalem, south of Bethel, that leads Abram to 
make the wise decision that both Abram and Lot should leave the Bethel area? 
Abram and Lot don?t need to sojourn together, because 
those two awful rulers are largely limited to operating in hill country 
between Shechem
and Jerusalem” because  those two awful rulers are largely limited to 
operating in hill country between Shechem and Jerusalem. So if, per Genesis 
13: 11, Lot and Abram exit Bethel by going east and west (with hill country 
running north and south), both Lot and Abram will thereby neatly avoid both 
of those awful individual 
rulers.”

   There is much debate as to the nature and origin of the Perizzites and 
this has a bearing on the whole story.

   The Hebrew word for Perizzite is  פְּרִזִּי P@rizziy {per-iz-zee')meaning
“belonging to a village” “rural”. “rustics” according to Strong 6522. They 
are defined as “people who live in unwalled villages” Easton defines them as 
“Villagers: dwellers in the open country”

  P@rizziy is close to the Hebrew word פְּרָזִי p@raziy {per-aw-zee'}
meaning  “villager, rural dweller, hamlet-dweller”

  The words are so close that on several occasions where 
the KJV uses the words “unwalled villages” the Septuagint
translates it is Perizzite. (1Samuel 6:18, Deut 3:5)

Perizzite corresponds to the Egyptian word “fellah”.  Some say an 
unidentified word occurs in the Egyptian vocabularywhich may refer to the 
Perizzites:"Pirati"
 All of this precludes the Perizzites from living in the fortified town of 
Jerusalem....meaning no "awful Perizzite ruler" in Jerusalem...it is unknown 
if the Perizziteshad a ruler and Jerusalem was a Jebusite city in any 
case....and was ruled by Melchizedek in the time of Abraham.
  And why would Abraham seek an east west route to escape the Perizzites when 
according to the Septuagint Perizzites lived atShechem (Gen 34:30) and were 
among the Rephaites, in Carmel, at Gezer, The Aijalon Valley and so on?
In Joshua 17:15 Joshua tells the Ephraimites “ then get you up to the wood 
country, and cut down for yourself there in the land of the Perizzites and of 
the giants “
after they complained the Hill Country was not enough for them.
 
These Perizzites are specifically mentioned as living in the heavy Forests of 
Ephraim. Therefore where is the logicin Abraham travelling west of Bethel to 
escape them?  
As for the ruler of Jerusalem being “awful” as you put it, are
you claiming Melchizedek, king of Jerusalem, was an evil man that Abraham 
feared?
  
  Why is the explanation for Abraham's split from Lot, given in the bible and 
expanded in the Targums ignored and theories about a supposedly evil 
Melchizedek substituted?
  Is there some bias against accepting or even just considering, the Jewish 
version of the story?
  In the Targums while Abraham told his shepherds to prevent the cattle from 
grazing on the property of the Canaanites
Lot's men allowed his cattle to trespass. Abraham told his men,
“Go not to the Kenaanaee and Pherizaee; for as yet they have possession in 
the land.”  Abraham recognized that the Canaanites owned the land and he was 
a guest.    The strife was between the shepherds over the violation of the 
property of the Canaanites and
Perizzites...According to the Talmud, the Canaanites complained to Abraham. 
To  diffuse the situation and appease his neighbors decides to leave the area 
entirely and tells Lot “ separate then from me. If  thou to the north, I to 
the south: if thou to the south, I to the north.  “ 
 Abraham is not concerned with some fictional “awful ruler” in Shechem
where he'd built an altar in peace and where Jacob would live for a while. 
Nor did he fear Melchizedek, who later paid him the honor of bringing bread 
and wine, a traditional sign of respect.
  Abraham was, according to the Targums, a righteous man who respected
the fact he was a stranger in a foreign land in the possession of the 
Canaanites and wanted to live peacefully amongst them.    He sought to be a 
"good neighbor" and did not wish to make his name "stink" as Jacob put it.
    The prevailing opinion is the Perizzites weren't Canaanites, but were 
likely a Semitic group, possibly an amalgamation ofseveral groups of people 
who preferred life in the country over a wide area of Canaan.  Rob Acosta     
                                      
>From chavoux AT gmail.com  Thu Jun 23 14:45:09 2011
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Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:45:07 +0200
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From: Chavoux Luyt <chavoux AT gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Appositional Phrase vs. Adjectival Phrase
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Hi Jim

You wrote:

> But it wouldn=E2=80=99t make sense, would it, to tell us once, much less =
twice,
> that at that time there were Canaanites dwelling in the land of Canaan?  =
Why
> would that fact cause both Abram and Lot to leave the Bethel area, which =
is
> the context here?  Wherever both Abram and Lot or either of them went in
> Canaan, there would always be Canaanites in the land of Canaan.  If H-KN(=
NY
> means  the tribe of the Canaanites in those two verses, in the plural, ho=
w does
> that explain Abram=E2=80=99s wise decision that both Abram and Lot should=
 leave the
> Bethel area, and also that there was no need for Abram and Lot to continu=
e to
> sojourn together?  (i) If the Canaanites and Perizzites were potentially
> hostile tribes, shouldn=E2=80=99t Abram and Lot have stayed together (whe=
ther at Bethel
> or elsewhere), despite their quarreling herdsmen?
The way I always used to read this was not so much that the Canaanites
were hostile (cf. Abraham's covenant with Aner and his brothers), but
that in addition to the huge numbers of Abraham and Lot's flocks, the
Canaanites also used part of the land, making the available land even
less for the tent-dwellers'/pastoralists' flocks. Thus the emphasis is
simply on the fact that the available land became "too narrow" for
both Abraham and Lot, especially since there were other (sedentary?)
tribes in the land as well.

That they both left Bethel can simply be explained by the fact that
the grazing in the area has been exhausted by the combination of
flocks (at least until the veld has had some rest).

Regards
Chavoux Luyt