Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

George Athas:

You wrote:  “You forgot to mention that Jerusalem is renamed עיר דוד for a time.”

Well then, let’s take a look at both the formal name of Jerusalem and its series of nicknames.

1.  In the beginning, from day #1, the formal name of the city was úru$lm, as reflected in Amarna Letter EA 287 from the Hurrian princeling ruler of Jerusalem, IR-Heba.

2.  The Hebrews later gave it its first Hebrew nickname, “Jebus”, which means “Hurrian”.  Not only was IR-Heba a Hurrian, but even after the Hurrians had for the most part gone extinct, several families of Hurrian ancestry remained prominent in Jerusalem, down to and including Araunah and Uriah, both of whom have classic Hurrian names and were prominent individuals in Jerusalem in the days of King David.

Even if much of the King David saga may be legendary instead of historical [with Araunah and Uriah perhaps being Biblical characters who are not historical], nevertheless, be that as it may, there is at least one very important grain of truth in the King David saga, which presents the Hebrews as taking over the city of Jerusalem from Hurrians such as Araunah.  Though the Hurrians had for the most part gone extinct by the end of the 13th century BCE, some of the leading families of Jerusalem, both in the 10th century BCE and on into the 1st millennium BCE, were of Hurrian ancestry.  The proof of that Biblical assertion  [Joshua 15: 63 famously says that “the Jebusites [that is to say, Hurrians] dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day”] is that later Biblical authors were able to come up with bona fide Hurrian personal names for characters who, per the nomenclature [such as Jebusites, Kenites, Kenizzites, Hittites, Perizzites, Girgashites and Hivites, using the awful KJV transliterations] used in the Patriarchal narratives, should be Hurrians.  Thus “Jael”, as the name of a woman who is a Kenite, is not a west Semitic name that absurdly means “male ibex” [!!!], but rather is a bona fide Hurrian name [with “Kenite” being one of the many Patriarchal nicknames for the Hurrians] that has a very fitting meaning in Hurrian: “[Hurrian] noblewoman”.

3.  Then in honor of Hebrew King David, Jerusalem got its second Hebrew nickname:  “City of David”.  As I noted in my prior post, it’s fine for a nickname for a city to begin with (YR, though formal names of cities begin with QRYT.

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois