Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Why does the Bible give us elaborate, explicit etymologies of the names of 
Jacob’s 11 oldest sons?
 
No such explicit etymologies are set forth for the name of Jacob’s youngest 
son, Benjamin, or for the name of Abraham’s proper male heir, Isaac.
 
Perhaps at the outset we should take a quick glance at a scholarly 
explanation of Biblical etymologies of the names of Jacob’s oldest 11 sons:
 
“We must, however, imagine that not the least of the charms of this passage 
for the ancient reader consisted in the renewed suspense about how the next 
name (long familiar, of course) would be interpreted by the narrator.  So 
these are not, therefore, etymologies in the strict sense of the word and do 
not claim to be.  Rather, they are free allusions to which the narrator is 
inspired by the names and which the hearers receive as ingenious.”  Prof. 
Gerhard von Rad, “Genesis” (1972), p. 294.
 
Prof. von Rad does not seem to realize that it’s not the narrator who 
presents these etymologies of the names of Jacob’s oldest 11 sons.  No, the 
author has Leah and Rachel tell us what they think of these names.
 
And are scholars correct in assuming, without discussion, that these 11 
names are far, far older than the received text of chapters 29 and 30 of 
Genesis?  If these names, as opposed to the text, are truly ancient [which I 
believe is the way scholars view the matter, though that’s certainly not my 
view], then why would there be an interior vav/W in the name $M(WN 
[“Simeon”]?  
Is that plene spelling of a west Semitic ending?  If so, why would plene 
spelling of a west Semitic ending be the hallmark of a truly ancient name?  
ZBLWN [“Zebulun”] looks suspicious, too.  For example, Genesis 49: 13 has 
CYD-N, which is defective, old-style spelling of a west Semitic ending, 
whereas 
later books in the Bible update the name Sidon to plene spelling as CYD-WN.  
Why are the supposedly ancient names $M(WN and ZBLWN the reverse of that 
phenomenon as to the presence or absence of an interior vav/W?  
 
Speaking of endings, rather than $M(WN originally being pronounced as a 
two-syllable name, isn’t it more likely that $M(WN was originally pronounced 
as 
a four-syllable name:  $M-(-W-N?  Why does BDB, a conservative, mainstream 
lexicon, make the following very odd remarks about this name [citing 
non-biblical sources]?  “…meaning doubtful…said to mean offspring of hyena 
and wolf
….”  Doesn’t that seem more like “ingenious”, “charm”[-less] midrash 
than Leah’s rather pedestrian explanation of this name?
 
Speaking of ZBLWN, Prof. Speiser doesn’t think much of Leah’s explanation:
 
“Heb. stem zbl…has traditionallly been interpreted as ‘to dwell’, which 
lacks etymological justification, and cannot be forced in any case to yield ‘
will dwell with me’ on syntactical grounds.  …But the required link is 
supplied by Akk. zubullu ‘bridegroom’s gift’, which is construed with the 
cognate verb zabalu;…it supplies a natural semantic basis;  it automatically 
accounts for the form (zubullu Zebulun)….”  “Genesis” (1962), p. 231.  
 
But if one starts down that path, ignoring the Biblical explanation and 
looking to Akkadian to explain the interior vav/W in ZBLWN, then how would 
one 
explain the interior vav/W in $M(WN?  What about Levi’s son GR$WN [“Gershon”
], and Zebulun’s son )LWN [“Elon”]?  How can ancient proper names 
allegedly be rife with plene spelling?  As to west Semitic common words, 
there is 
less plene spelling in the Patriarchal narratives than elsewhere in the 
Bible, 
whereas regarding proper names of individuals, the Patriarchal narratives 
feature eight personal names that end with -WN, whereas such names of 
individuals [featuring that interior vav/W] are rare elsewhere in the Bible.
 
Are scholars right to assume that “the narrator” is doing “ingenious” 
midrash on truly ancient names that may pre-date the narrator by centuries?  
And are scholars right to ignore the fact that the text presents these 
etymologies as being told by Leah and Rachel?  Why is there no such 
“ingenious” 
midrash for the names Isaac and Benjamin, if the narrator was oddly addicted 
to providing such “charms…for the ancient reader”?
 
Shouldn’t we ask the following question [a question that I myself have 
never seen raised in the scholarly literature]?   W-h-y  is it critically 
important for chapters 29 and 30 of Genesis to portray  L-e-a-h  and  
R-a-c-h-e-l  
as setting forth elaborate, explicit etymologies for the names of all 11 of 
Jacob’s oldest sons?
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois