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  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: nir AT ccet.ufrn.br, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] kaleb
  • Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:36:40 -0500 (EST)


Nir Cohen wrote: “this is interesting, since in talmudic aramaic?/hebrew?
כלבה was used for lioness (i speak from memory only. anybody can confirm?).
so maybe jephuneh gave his sons names after the most noble of animals? and in
semitic?”

Genesis 15: 19-21 refers to Canaanites, Amorites, QNZY [Kenizzites] and 7
other peoples. It seems unlikely that the Kenizzites are Canaanites or
Amorites, and it also seems unlikely that anyone in Canaan other than
Canaanites or Amorites would be native west Semitic speakers having west
Semitic names. Therefore, anyone whom the Bible states is a Kenizzite or a
son of Kenaz would logically be expected to be a foreigner with a non-west
Semitic name.

Othniel is expressly stated to be a “son of QNZ”, and Othniel’s brother Caleb
is expressly said to be a Kenizzite [Numbers 32: 12]. For all of “Kenaz” and
“Kenizzites” and “Othniel”, the Hebrew lexicons say that the name is “from an
unused [west Semitic] root”. Isn’t that suspicious? We would expect a
Kenizzite like Othniel to be a foreigner with a non-west Semitic name, and
there is no used west Semitic root for Othniel, so why try to insist that
such a foreigner’s name is west Semitic?

As to the name “Caleb”, although KLB is the west Semitic word for “dog”, the
Biblical references to dogs are consistently negative, whereas Caleb is
viewed extremely positively by Biblical authors. Yes, some foreign cultures
had a higher opinion of dogs, but that would reinforce the idea that Caleb
the Kenizzite was a foreigner. As a foreigner, why would Caleb be thought to
have a west Semitic name? Per Genesis 15: 19-21, we should not in fact
expect a Kenizzite to have a west Semitic name, because the Kenizzites are
neither Canaanites nor Amorites, and who else in the Patriarchal Age besides
the Hebrews themselves were native west Semitic speakers?

Logically, when neither “Kenizzite” nor the personal names of people in the
Bible who are said to be Kenizzites make sense as attested west Semitic
words, shouldn’t we at least a-s-k if all these names may be non-west
Semitic names? I honestly do not understand the insistence that Kenizzite
names allegedly m-u-s-t be west Semitic. How does such an assertion make
logical sense? Doesn’t “Kenizzite” mean a foreigner who is not a Canaanite
or an Amorite, and wouldn’t such foreigners be expected to have non-west
Semitic names? Whether the Bible is pure fiction or pure historical fact or
anywhere in between those two extremes, and regardless of its composition
dates, wouldn’t it make more sense if persons identified in the Bible as
Kenizzites had non-west Semitic names? So since Caleb is explicitly stated
to be a foreigner, why insist that Caleb has a west Semitic name meaning
“Dog”?

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois







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