Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Kirk Lowery:

 

You wrote:  “To my knowledge, the consonant [heth/X] never occurs in the semitic languages as an inflectional morpheme. It is always part of a lexical stem or root.”

 

Thank you so much for confirming what my own research had strongly suggested.

 

One practical application of that key linguistic fact is as follows.

 

The mysterious name $RX [or %RX] at Genesis 46: 17 cannot be analyzed as being $R or %R, plus suffix heth/X, if $RX is a Semitic name.  Thus the well-documented existence of the Semitic root $R is of no use if $RX is a west Semitic name [as ordinarily thought], because no Semitic name could have a heth/X as a suffix.

 

That is why analysts change the first consonant of this name to a samekh/S.  $RX [or %RX] is then viewed as being a west Semitic name that is a bollixed-up version of SRX, with the initial consonant samekh/S having  become confused with the initial consonant shin/$ or sin/%.

 

But excluding Aramaic, samekh rarely is confused with sin in Biblical Hebrew, despite the apparent similarity of their sounds.  Even more rarely is samekh confused with shin in Biblical Hebrew [where the sounds are markedly different].  Thus although it is possible that the name $RX or %RX at Genesis 46: 17 could be a bollixed-up version of SRX, to me that does not seem very likely.

 

My own view is that the spelling at Genesis 46: 17 has pinpoint accuracy, that the name should be analyzed as being $R plus suffix heth/X, and that accordingly $R-X is like $R-Y at Genesis 11: 29:  there is no known Semitic name for a human being of this type.  The early Hebrews knew many non-Semitic peoples, and tent-dwelling people just like the early Hebrews are attested as sometimes recording their thoughts in writing [per Amarna Letter EA 273], so in my controversial opinion we should not be shocked to find non-Semitic proper names, with proper Late Bronze Age spellings, in Genesis.  Moreover, we know that $R-Y cannot possibly be a Canaanite name, because both Abraham and Isaac loathe Canaanite brides.  Genesis 24: 3;  28: 1. Thus the conventional view that $RY is an archaic form of a west Semitic name from an unattested Canaanite dialect is simply not possible textually.  Plus, no such west Semitic name of a human being has ever been found in the ancient world.  $R-X almost certainly cannot be a Canaanite wife either, because per Genesis 46:10 we would expect to be told if any wife in this list were a rare Canaanite wife.  Indeed, one suspects that $R-Y and $R-X were brought into the Hebrew family in the identical manner, for the same reason, with the presence of $R-X thus re-validating, as it were, the process by which $R-Y became Abram’s wife/sister.  T-h-a-t  is why, you see, $R-X as a woman is listed and counted as one of the 70 Hebrews who migrate to Egypt from Canaan with Jacob.  The scholarly view is that $R-Y and $R-X must somehow be thought of as being unattested west Semitic names;  but not only does that scholarly view appear to be linguistically impossible [if one doesn’t change the letters in the received text], but also then there is no explanation either as to (i) why $R-Y’s biological parentage is not mentioned at the end of chapter 11 of Genesis, or (ii) why $R-X is counted as one of the 70 Hebrews who move to Egypt.  In my view, it is not a mere “coincidence” that Sarah, whose birth name is $R-Y, is said to be Abraham’s “sister” at Genesis 20: 12, and $R-X is likewise said to be Beriah’s “sister” at Genesis 46: 17.

 

If the very first female name in the Patriarchal narratives, and one of the last female names, are both non-Semitic, and both of these non-Semitic women are expressly said to be a man’s “sister”, that would be telling us something important about the antiquity and historicity and basic meaning of the Patriarchal narratives.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if an historical linguist were someday to  a-s-k  if $R-Y and $R-X are non-Semitic names coming straight out of the Late Bronze Age?

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois