Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Isaac Fried:

You wrote:  “This is how they were called by the people of the land. Those 
who were living close together were typically called QNIZIY, and those who 
were living spread out were typically called PRIZIY.”

1.  The PRZY did not live “spread out”.  The most famous PRZY lived in 
Jerusalem.  Genesis 12: 6 tells us that the Canaanite ruled Shechem.  Genesis 
13: 7 then says that the Canaanite and the PRZY were in the land;  in 
context, that means that the Canaanite Lab’ayu ruled Shechem, and the 
Hurrian/PRZY/Piri-izzi-ya IR-Heba ruled Jerusalem.  Because those two 
antagonistic rulers held sway in the only two cities that existed at that 
time in hill country south of the Jezreel Valley, Abram and Lot could go 
neither north [by Shechem] nor south [by Jerusalem] in leaving Bethel.  So 
Genesis 13: 11 explicitly says that Lot went “east” from Bethel, and per 
Genesis 13: 9, Abram went the opposite direction as Lot.  So Abram went west, 
to the Ayalon Valley, a territory controlled by an Amorite princeling, just 
as Genesis 14: 13 says.  If it’s Year 12 [and it must be the year before Year 
13, per the second half of Genesis 14: 4], then all three rulers match 
exactly:  (i) the Canaanite strongman Lab’ayu in Shechem;  (ii) the 
Perizzite/Hurrian Ir-Heba in Jerusalem;  and (iii) the Amorite princeling 
Milk-Ilu in the Ayalon Valley.  That’s  p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t  historical accuracy 
in a Year 12 context.

2.  As to QNZY, David Steinberg has pointed out that KNS does not match, 
having only one phoneme in common.  Why not instead go with a 
super-spectacular 4-letter match?  Take a gander at this Hurrian name from 
the Late Bronze Age Hurrian province of Nuzi in eastern Syria:  Qa-ni-iz-za.  
[Gelb and Purves, “Nuzi Personal Names” (1943),  p. 79b.]  Hebrew yod/Y is 
used to represent the Hurrian vowel A, and the Hebrew rendering of Hurrian 
names never doubles a consonant.  So QNZY is Qa-Ni-iZ-A.  You can’t beat 4 
for 4.

The Patriarchal narratives are much older, and more historically accurate, 
than university scholars realize.  Just look at those ancient Hurrian proper 
names!

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois