Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Jack Kilmon wrote:  “I don't think we need to go to Egypt to find a RA 
theophoric to explain the name change but need to look for a Semitic root.”

I know people don’t like Egypt, because of the Book of Exodus.  But if the 
Patriarchal narratives are old [my view], then they were composed before 
Egypt began to oppress the Hebrews.  So back in the Patriarchal Age, there 
should be little or no anti-Egypt bias among the first Hebrews.  Thus unlike 
in the rest of the Bible, one sees this surprising pro-Egypt ancient mindset 
of the first Hebrews in Genesis:  “And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy 
brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of 
Canaan;  And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I 
will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the 
land.”  Genesis 45: 17-18

There is no Aramaic word ra, or anything similar, that means “Deity”, is 
there?  But as noted in my prior post, r’ or ra or re could have the generic 
meaning of “Deity” in Egyptian.

We can see this more clearly if we look at the name “Sarah”.  Gesenius states 
that %RH, the divinely-changed name of Abraham’s wife, is the feminine of the 
noun %R.  %R means “prince, ruler, leader, chief, chieftain, official, 
captain”.  As I noted in my prior post, although %R/“ruler” is usually viewed 
as deriving from the Hebrew verb %RR/“to rule” or “to act like a prince” or 
“to have power”, it is possible that, alternatively, %R was originally a 
2-syllable word, %a-ra, which derives from the world-famous Egyptian kingly 
title sa-ra.  The Egyptian way of making sa-ra feminine would be sat-ra, but 
the Hebrew way of making a foreign word into a name, including a woman’s 
name, is to add -H at the end, so that sa-ra would be Hebrewized into a 
woman’s name by becoming sa-ra-h, or %RH.  All of this works perfectly if, in 
the Patriarchal Age, an early Hebrew could view R as being a generic 
reference to Deity.  On that analysis, %RH is %-R-H, where -H in effect means 
“she” [indicating a woman’s name, the Hebrew way], -R- means God, with one 
meaning of  r’ or ra or re in Egyptian being a generic reference to Deity, 
and % means sa, which in Egyptian means “son”.  So %-R-H means “she[, from 
whom will come] sons [who will be] kings”.  That’s exactly what Genesis 17: 
15-16 tells us the name “Sarah”/%RH means:  “And God said unto Abraham, As 
for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah [%RH] 
[shall] her name [be].  And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of 
her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be [a mother] of nations; kings of 
people shall be of her.”

Thus if R means “God” in both the names “Abraham” and “Sarah”, based on the 
Egyptian word r’ or ra or re, and if % in the name “Sarah” means “son”, based 
on the Egyptian word sa, then both the names “Abraham” and “Sarah” have the 
exact meanings that are stated for them in the text of chapter 17 of Genesis. 
 I know it’s hard for people to think that a Patriarch or Matriarch could 
have a name that is in part based on Egyptian words, but remember that if the 
Patriarchal narratives are old, then they reflect a time period before the 
Hebrews were oppressed by Egypt.  So why not use sa-ra, the best-known phrase 
in the entirety of the ancient world, as the basis for the names of Patriarch 
and Matriarch Abraham and Sarah?  If the Patriarchal narratives are really 
old, it makes sense.

The two exciting aspects of my controversial etymologies of the names 
“Abraham” and “Sarah” are that then (1) those two names would mean exactly 
what chapter 17 of Genesis tells us those two names mean, and (2) the 
Patriarchal narratives are really old, having been composed [by a single 
early Hebrew author] before Egypt began oppressing the Hebrews.  “Accurate 
and old”:  that pretty much sums up my view of the Patriarchal narratives.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois