Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Chavoux Luyt <chavoux AT gmail.com>]

Hi Jim
> From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
>
> 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?
<snip>
First of all, it is possible that Kenizi can have more than one
meaning (cf. the word "Indian" that was for long used both as the name
of an Asian people and for the indigenous people of the Americas). The
simple reason why Caleb (and by implication Othniel) cannot be from a
foreign people is simply because it is explicitly said in Num.13:6
that he was from the tribe of Judah, one of the children of Jacob and
of the tribes of Israel. The name "Kenizzite" in this context would
imply that there was at least one person called Kenaz in the tribe of
Judah (a Hebrew tribe speaking West-Semitic) and his descendants were
kalled "Kennizites". Indeed, it is explicitly said that Othniel was
the son of Kenaz (I am not sure how you can translate Jos.15:17 to
mean that Othniel is the brother of Caleb, since Caleb is said to be
the son of Jephunne? - It seems rather to say that Kenaz was the
brother of Caleb (although they could also have had an ancestor called
Kenaz).

> 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”?
But Caleb is explicitly stated not to be a foreigner, but from the
tribe of Judah. Unless you are implying that the tribe of Judah are
also foreigners? It just makes more sense that the Kenaz mentioned in
connection with Caleb and Othniel was from the tribe of Judah just as
1 Cron.4 also imply. So if they are from the tribe of Judah, will you
not agree that it is more likely that their names are also
West-Semitic? But yes, I agree with you that we can ask if some people
from the tribe of Judah had non-Semitic names; it has been known for
people to sometimes give "foreign" names to their children. But it
does not seem logical to me to conclude that they were foreigners when
the text clearly says that they were not.

Shalom
Chavoux Luyt