Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Chavoux Luyt:

1.  It is fascinating that Judges 8: 24, 26 seems to say that certain 
Ishmaelites were Midianites.  That supports my view that chapter 37 of 
Genesis was composed by a single author, who describes the people who took 
Joseph to Egypt as being both Ishmaelites and Midianites.

2.  As to Judges 6: 3, the KJV reads:  “And [so] it was, when Israel had 
sown, that the Midianites [MDYN-YM] came up, and the Amalekites [(MLQ-Y], and 
the children of the east, even they came up against them”.  As you know, I 
see M-D-Y-N as being Mi-it-ta-an-ni, conceptualized by the early Hebrew 
author as Mi-da-a-ni, where (i) D and T are interchangeable in Hurrian, and 
(ii) Hebrew yod is often used to represent the Hurrian vowel A in Hurrian 
names.  Note that Mi-da-a-ni/M-D-Y-N/Mitanni is “the east” [eastern Syria], 
which fits perfectly with the Biblical reference here to “the children of the 
east”.

But here’s the exciting new news.  As you probably know, scholars have been 
completely unable to determine who the (MLQ-Y/Amalekites might be.  Since 
that name first appears at Genesis 14: 7, it hardly makes sense that the 
(MLQ-Y would be the descendants of Esau’s illegitimate grandson Amalek, who 
is not mentioned until Genesis 36: 12, 16.  But Mi-da-a-ni/M-D-Y-N/Mitanni 
and “the children of the east” are Hurrians (referencing the Hurrian 
heartland out east in eastern Syria), so we should ask if (MLQ-Y is a Hurrian 
name being used Biblically to refer to Hurrians.  On a Hurrian analysis, 
(ML-Q-Y is the Hebrew rendering of Hurrian a-mu-ul-qa-ya.  A-mu-ul means “to 
see” in Hurrian.  Because the first syllable or component is a freestanding 
Hurrian vowel A, we would expect either Hebrew ayin or Hebrew yod (not Hebrew 
aleph, which is used only in prosthetic situations).  -qa is a standard 
Hurrian suffix that is used to turn a Hurrian common word into a name.  The 
final yod/Y is not the standard west Semitic suffix meaning “people”;  
rather, it is -ya, the classic Hurrian theophoric suffix, which usually 
refers to the Hurrians’ chief deity, the storm-god “Teshup”.  The meaning of 
‘MLQ-Y/A-mu-ul-qa-ya on the foregoing Hurrian analysis is “See Teshup”, 
implying the Hurrians, who were the “See Teshup” people.

In my opinion, when a people associated with “the children of the east” in 
the Bible have a name that defies west Semitic analysis, we should consider a 
Hurrian analysis of such name, asking if this is a Hurrian-based name being 
used to refer to Hurrians.  

We see here one more millennia-old Biblical secret bite the dust!  
‘MLQ-Y/A-mu-ul-qa-ya/Amalekites is a Hurrian-based Biblical name that 
references the Hurrians from out east.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois