Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Kenneth Greifer wrote:  “I looked at the quotes and I think they could say 
the kings served the other king 12 years, then they rebelled 13 years, and 
in the fourteenth year (of their rebelling), the king came to attack them. It 
does not literally say ‘in the 13th year’ they rebelled.”
 
The main problem with that view is that a rebellion rarely lasts 13 years.  
A more likely meaning is what I have proposed:  “…and Year 13 they rebelled
”.
 
Consider all the matches to historical Year numbers that follow from that 
analysis.  It is likely that a coalition of 5 rebellious princelings in 
southern Syria did indeed form in Year 13.  Many scholars see Year 14 as the 
year 
in which attackers, featuring a Hittite king who had seized the throne by 
virtue of murdering his own older brother named “Tidal” (hence that nasty 
Patriarchal nickname), destroyed the coalition of 5 rebellious princelings.  
(Scholarly opinion is split as to whether the attackers were comprised of 4 
parties, as the Biblical text has it, or rather 2 of those parties only 
joined the Hittites a year or so after the Great Syrian War in western Syria 
was 
fought.)
 
So Years 13 and 14 work great as a comparison to the historical “four kings 
against five”, if the reference is to the Great Syrian War in western 
Syria, which indirectly, but surely, potentially threatened Canaan, as the 
Hittites at the moment seemed unstoppable and relentless and voracious.
 
But on this thread I have focused on Year 12, the year before Year 13, as 
the exact date on which Abram first settled at the Patriarchs’ Hebron.  If 
the famous letter of the notorious Canaanite strongman operating out of 
Shechem, historical Lab’ayu, is dated “Year 12” (which was the original 
reading 
of the Egyptian hieratic docket number, to which I subscribe, though many 
scholars prefer a “Year 32” date), then all of the following references in 
chapters 12-13 of Genesis suddenly make complete sense, instead of being 
seemingly inexplicable:  (1) “the Canaanite” at Genesis 12: 6 and 13: 7 is 
Lab’
ayu of Shechem, with Shechem being a major city-state/MQWM $KM which for one 
year only, Year 12, seemed poised to take control of most of Canaan south of 
the Jezreel Valley;  (2) “the Perizzite” at Genesis 13: 7 is Hurrian 
princeling IR-Xeba of Jerusalem, where “Perizzi” is a Patriarchal nickname 
based 
on the name of a Hurrian messenger from Naharim/Mitanni in the Amarna 
Letters that is a classic Hurrian name also attested at Nuzi [“Naharim” is at 
Genesis 24: 10;  “Mitanni”, with D and T being interchangeable, is at Genesis 
37: 28];  (3)  in order to go north from Bethel, Lot goes east, in order to 
make a very wide detour to avoid Lab’ayu’s Shechem completely;  (4)  in 
going the opposite of east of Bethel [that is, in proceeding  w-e-s-t  from 
Bethel], Abram comes to the northeast Ayalon Valley, which was a true “rural 
paradise” in Year 12 for the Patriarchs, having not a single town or village, 
but having all that great land for sheep and goats, and with Abram being 
able to provide his own security [later concerns about security are what 
caused 
the early Hebrews to abandon the northeast Shephelah in favor of hill 
country, once cisterns came into use so that water supply was no longer an 
insurmountable problem in hill country;  at the time, in Year 12, hill 
country had 
lost 90% of its Middle Bronze Age population, largely due to a prolonged 
lack of adequate rainfall in the Late Bronze Age];  (5) the oak trees 
mentioned three times in the Biblical text as synonymous with the Patriarchs’ 
Hebron 
are reflected by a later town’s name “Elon” in the northeast Shephelah, 
showing that oak trees were prominent there, whereas there has never been a 
town named “Elon” or anything close to “Oak Tree” in southern hill country;  
(6) with the Patriarchs’ Hebron being the eastern Ayalon Valley [not 
southern hill country, which was later named XBR by early Hebrews in honor of 
the 
Patriarchs’ XBRWN, and in later books in the Bible the two different places 
become conflated and both are called XBRWN], Abram allies with an Amorite 
princeling there [of Gezer in the southwest Ayalon Valley] who historically 
is 
attested as allying with tent-dweller-type peoples [Hapiru, whose lifestyle 
in some cases was somewhat similar to the Patriarchs] and Canaanites 
[Biblical Eshcol] and Hurrians [Biblical Aner] [all per Genesis 14: 13], with 
Abram being so enamored of this Amorite princeling, whose Patriarchal 
nickname 
is “Mamre”, that one of Jacob’s descendants bears this princeling’s actual, 
historical name:  Milk-Ilu [Genesis 46: 17, where the Amorite word for 
deity, Ilu, is changed to the Hebrew word, El];  and (7) although there are 
no 
caves for Sarah’s burial in the northeast Ayalon Valley (and no towns either, 
in Year 12), there are caves and [in Year 12] a Hurrian town, whose name 
features the consonants R-B, in the southeast Ayalon Valley where Abraham can 
buy Sarah’s burial cave from the Hurrian “lord” Ephron.
 
Note that if the second half of Genesis 14: 4 refers to “Year 13”, as I 
think it does, and if Amarna Letter EA 254 refers to “Year 12”, as I think it 
does, then  e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g  in the Biblical text matches to the 
well-attested history of southern Canaan in Years 12-14.  The  
p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t  
historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives in the context of Year 12 
is 
absolutely stunning.  E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g  checks out perfectly.  The 
scholarly view that multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE made this 
stuff up 
is simply impossible, because no one in the 1st millennium BCE could 
possibly have known all those many specific details as to what was going on 
in 
southern Canaan in Years 12-14.       
 
If we take the apparent reference to “Year 13” at Genesis 14: 4 seriously, 
we can figure out everything (including who the Girgashites are at Genesis 
15: 18-21).
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois