Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

On Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:52:38 -0400 (EDT), JimStinehart wrote
>
>

Nir 
Cohen:

1.  In Hebrew city 
names, if one wants to use the Hebrew word that means “city”, we see 
QRYT.  Thus in the Bible we 
find:  (i) Kiriath-arba at Genesis 
23: 2;  (ii) Kiriath-jearim at 
Joshua 15: 60 [and many other places in the Bible;  the Joshua cite gives Kiriath Baal as an alternate 
name];  (iii) Kiriathaim at Joshua 
13: 19 [and many other places in the Bible]; 
 (iv) Kiriath-Huzoth at Numbers 22: 39; 
 (v) Kiriath-Sepher at Judges 1: 11; 
 and (vi) Kartah at Joshua 21: 34.  
So if one wants to incorporate the Hebrew word for “city” into a 
formal city name, the Biblical evidence is that one consistently uses QRYT.  

But of 
course, QRYT does not sound anything like úru or 
URU.

2.  (YR is very 
different.  (YR is used 1,074 times 
to mean “city” in the Bible.  
Yet  n-e-v-e-r  is (YR used as the beginning of the 
proper, formal name of a city!  
Rather, all we see in that regard is that on two occasions, (YR is used 
as an apt description of a city, being a colorful nickname as it were for the 
city:  (i) “city of the 
Salt”/(YR H-MLX at Joshua 15: 62, which seems to be a description of/nickname 
for En-Gedi, not the proper name of a separate city;  and (ii) “city of the sun-[god]”/(YR $M$ at Joshua 19: 
41, which seems to be a colorful, descriptive nickname for the city whose 
actual, proper name was Beth-Shemesh.

Thus 
if one wants to incorporate the Hebrew word for “city” into a formal city 
name, the Biblical evidence is that one consistently uses QRYT,  n-e-v-e-r  (YR.

You seem to think that (YR sounds 
somewhat like úru or URU.  But even 
if you were right about that, the fact of the matter is that (YR is never used, 
to the best of my knowledge, to create the formal name of a city in Canaan.

3.  The earliest attested 
spelling of the city name “Jerusalem” is 
úru-$alim in the Amarna Letters from Hurrian princeling ruler IR-Heba of 
Jerusalem.  By the time the Hebrews come along and 
start recording city names in the Bible, úru-$alim was “just a name”.  That name had not been created by the 
Hebrews, so it’s not surprising that the Bible merely passively records the 
ancient Canaanite name for this city.  
Since the first U is accented whereas the second U is not, and since an 
initial vav/W would have been taken as being a true consonant, in copying 
the  s-o-u-n-d  of úru, I see YRW as being quite close, 
in particular being closer than your suggestion of (YR.  Moreover, the Bible  n-e-v-e-r  starts out the formal name of a city with (YR.  N-e-v-e-r 
.

Will Parsons wrote:  
“And in fact the transition of initial [w] to [j]/ is quite normal 
in

> 

Hebrew, so that there is nothing inherently unlikely about ורו / 
[wuru]

> 

becoming ירו / [juru-] -> [jeru-].” 
 That is a more sophisticated version of my own theory of the 
case.

4.  In my view, (i) 
the Canaanite name of this city meant “City of Peace”, and (ii) the Bible simply passively 
records a Hebraized version of the original Canaanite name, where úru is 
rendered as YRW.

Rather than merely being an inconsequential argument 
about etymology, though, there in fact are huge stakes involved here.  In my opinion, the city name 
“Jerusalem” 
 a-l-w-a-y-s  has some 
version of YRW at the beginning, both in the Bible and outside of the 
Bible.  I myself never interpret $LM 
as being a shorthand Biblical reference to Jerusalem. 
 Rather, I see the never-shortened name as being YRW$LM, which was 
“just a name”, and was not viewed by the Hebrews as being an optional way of 
spelling out “City of Peace”.  
To the Hebrews, YRW didn’t seem like the word for “city”, but 
rather was an integral part of what was “just a name”:  YRW$LM. 
 In my opinion, the Hebrews  
a-l-w-a-y-s  thought of this 
city’s name as being YRW$LM, and never thought of the city name as being 
“City of $LM” which could be shortened to 
$LM.

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois

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