Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Heber’s Wife Jael:  “Male Ibex”?
 
In the Bible, there are different traditions as to who Moses’ father-in-law 
was. He is said to be a priest of Midian/MDYN at Exodus 3: 1.  At Judges 4: 
11, however, Moses’ father-in-law is said to be a Kenite:  “Now Heber 
[XBR] the Kenite [H-QYN-Y], [which was] of the children of Hobab [XB-B] the 
father in law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his 
tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which [is] by Kedesh [in Galilee].” 



Judges 5: 24 then says: “Blessed above women shall Jael [Y(L] the wife of 
Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent.”





The traditional view is that the name of Heber’s wife, “Jael”/Y(L, is a 
west Semitic name that means “Male Ibex”.  But does that make sense?
 
I myself do not see Y(L or MDYN or XB-B as having sensible meanings as west 
Semitic names.  XBR and H-QYN-Y don’t work well either as west Semitic 
names, though they’re not as bad as Y(L and MDYN and XB-B as west Semitic 
names. 
 Shouldn’t we question these traditional west Semitic etymologies?
 
Now consider Judges 6: 3, which seems to link both MDYN and (MLQ-Y [being 
another name that does not make sense in west Semitic] to the “people of the 
east”:  “And [so] it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came 
up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up 
against them”.
 
Finally, we know that, per Genesis 25: 2, 6, MDYN [a son of Abraham by his 
minor wife Keturah] was sent out east, where at Genesis 29: 1 Jacob will 
later meet those same “people of the east”.  [At least the Biblical 
nomenclature is the same as at Judges 6: 3 regarding “people of the east”, 
which at 
Genesis 29: 1 is clearly referring to Naharim, the Late Bronze Age name for 
eastern Syria that is found at Genesis 24: 10.] 
 
The Bible itself seems to be pretty clear that all of these names should be 
names of the “people of the east” from eastern Syria:  MDYN, XBR, H-QYN-Y, 
XB-B, Y(L, and (MLQ-Y.  All six of those names work perfectly in the 
non-Semitic language spoken in the Late Bronze Age by the “people of the 
east” in 
eastern Syria/Naharim/Mitanni/Mi-da-a-ni/MDYN, while not working at all 
well as west Semitic names.  Shouldn’t we be paying closer attention to what 
the Bible is telling us about these many names?  
 
Judges 19: 10 tells us that another name for Jerusalem was “Jebus”/YBWS.  
II Samuel tells us about Araunah the Jebusite in Jerusalem, where the name “
Araunah”/)RWN-H [which sure looks like Er-wi-na with a Semiticized ending] 
is generally viewed as being a non-Semitic name.  These pre-exilic books of 
the Bible seem to be outright telling us that some people whose names were 
non-Semitic remained in Jerusalem well into the mid-1st millennium BCE.  Why 
would one doubt that particular Biblical assertion?  But if we’re willing to 
give that Biblical assertion some tentative credence, then why the great 
reluctance to ask if these various names that make little sense in west 
Semitic, but make perfect sense as non-Semitic names, may in fact be 
precisely what 
the Bible is presenting them to us as being:  non-Semitic names from a 
people whose original homeland had been Late Bronze Age eastern Syria?  (1) 
Judges 19: 10 calls Jerusalem “Jebus”;  (2) Joshua 15: 63 explicitly says:  
“As 
for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could 
not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at 
Jerusalem unto this day”;  and (3) II Samuel portrays King David as taking 
over Jerusalem from Araunah the Jebusite, where Araunah is viewed by most 
analysts as being a non-Semitic name from a people whose origins had been in 
Late Bronze Age eastern Syria/Naharim/Mitanni/mi-da-a-ni/MDYN.  
 
To me, when the Bible flat out says “the Jebusites dwell with the children 
of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day”, that is telling us that some people 
who had originated in Late Bronze Age eastern Syria continued to live in 
Jerusalem until a very late date.  If so, then it would be child’s play for 
pre-exilic Biblical authors to come up with numerous non-Semitic names that 
recall Late Bronze Age eastern Syria, even if such pre-exilic Biblical 
authors 
knew almost nothing about either the Late Bronze Age or eastern Syria!  The 
one thing pre-exilic Biblical authors certainly  d-i-d  know, as native 
Biblical Hebrew speakers, is whether these odd names were west Semitic or 
not.  
Why do analysts ignore all these bucketfuls of obvious clues and persist in 
analyzing all of the following names [and many more of the same ilk] as being 
west Semitic names:  MDYN, XBR, H-QYN-Y, XB-B, Y(L, and (MLQ-Y? 
 
Is the name of Heber’s wife, Y(L, a west Semitic name meaning “Male Ibex”? 
 Is that a fair reading of the Bible?
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois