Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Nir Cohen:

1.  Let me start with your last comment:  “the name SERAH is not obviously 
female to hebrew ears, how else would the narrator indicate it was a daughter 
and not a son?”

(a)  Does $RX sound like a Hebrew name to you?  Pray tell what would it mean? 
 I see it as being a non-Semitic name that means “like Sarah”, where (i) the 
first two letters, $/%-R, are the first two letters in Sarah’s two names, $RY 
and %RH, and (ii) in non-Semitic a final heth/X means “coming from” or 
“-like” or “akin to”, etc.  [Compare the final heth/X in the name of 
Abraham’s father, TRX, where that final heth/X plays the same role in the 
intentional non-Semitic pun on that name, which means “coming from the 
man”/turu-xi.  All 7 Patriarchs and Matriarchs “come from the man” TRX.]   
$RX means “like Sarah”, and I see $RX’s situation as being essentially 
identical to $RY’s situation, as to the precise manner in which each woman 
was brought into the Hebrew family by her husband’s father.

(b)  As to clarifying that $RX is a female, what we would have expected, if 
$RX is Asher’s blood daughter, is that the text would say “and his daughter”. 
 But instead, the text mysteriously says “and their sister”.  To me, that 
alerts us to the key fact that $RX is not Asher’s blood daughter, just as $RY 
was not Terah’s blood daughter.  Asher did not think of $RX as being his 
daughter [as we know from the word “daughter” not being used at Genesis 46: 
17], and Terah did not think of $RY [the attested non-Semitic woman’s name 
$aru-ya, which does not make sense in west Semitic] as being his “daughter”, 
because at Genesis 11: 31 $RY is referred to as being Terah’s 
“daughter-in-law”.  The text is telling us what is going on, if we pay close 
attention to what the text says and does not say. 

2.  You wrote:  “it is even possible that some of the earliest biblical 
translations/interpretations, like onklos, introduced alterations/innovations 
which influenced the masorah in editing the final form of the OT in ways 
which differ from the original text.”

Yes, Onkelos saw Ayalon – Mamre, that is, )LN – Y – MMR), at Genesis 13: 18, 
14: 13 and 18: 1, and he deliberately mistranslated that phrase into Aramaic 
as “plains of Mamre”.  He did that in order to claim, falsely, that the 
Patriarchs’ “Hebron” had been located in a locale controlled by the later 
state of Judah.  The world would be a better place today if Onkelos had not 
deliberately mistranslated those key passages.

But Onkelos had nothing to do with $RY or $RX. 

3.  You wrote:  “granted, it is uncommon to find a daughter mentioned in a 
biblical genealogical list - so we have a real issue: why here?”

Precisely.  No one has understood that for well over 2,000 years now.  There 
are only two females in the list of 70 Hebrews in chapter 46 of Genesis:  (i) 
Dinah, who is explicitly referred to as being Jacob’s “daughter”, and (ii) 
Beriah’s “sister” $RX.  

The reason for including $RX was to confirm that Terah had not acted 
wrongfully in having his blood son )BRM [ab-rum in west Semitic, but also 
being a deliberate non-Semitic pun, a-ba-ri-im, meaning “lord”, as these 
names are indicating a strong non-Semitic influence on the first Hebrews, 
including marriage patterns like this] marry a woman who Abraham later 
describes as being his “sister”, but who in fact was not Terah’s blood 
daughter [with Terah for his part always viewing $RY as being his 
“daughter-in-law”, not his “daughter”, per Genesis 11: 31].  That was exactly 
what Asher did for his blood son Beriah regarding $RX.  Same.  For the same 
reasons.  Same.  And with the same good result.  Same.  The same in every 
way.  Otherwise, there would be no reason for Genesis 46: 17 to include a 
mysterious reference to “their sister $RX”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois