Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Old West Semitic Words from the Valley vs. Classic Biblical Hebrew

 

In asking whether the oldest parts of the Torah may have been committed to writing as early as the Late Bronze Age, one key issue is whether the vocabulary of west Semitic Canaanite at that time was or was not very similar to the vocabulary of classic Biblical Hebrew in Iron Age Judah.  Of course, the pre-1200 BCE archaic case endings must be discarded, and we should rightly expect that the endings generally may differ.  But are the roots the same, and with the same meaning, so that vocabulary is really no problem?

 

As a start toward answering that important question, let’s take a look here at the three west Semitic words that were recorded in cuneiform by Yapaxu and his successors in the Ayalon Valley in Year 14, near the end of the Amarna Age.  [Remember, we’re looking at old west Semitic Canaanite words,  n-o-t  Akkadian words, to see if those old Canaanite words match up quite nicely with the vocabulary of classic Biblical Hebrew in Iron Age Judah.]

 

1.  Amarna Letter EA 297: 13, from Yapaxu, who is the tent dweller-hating firstborn son of longtime Amorite princeling ruler Milk-i-Ilu.

 

si-ri = “pot”.

That west Semitic word compares directly to the following Biblical Hebrew word:

SYR = “pot” at Exodus 16: 3;  II Kings 4: 41.

 

Here the match is exact, once one drops the archaic pre-1200 case ending.  [By the way, we are usually certain as to the meaning of each of these old west Semitic words, because in most cases the west Semitic word is directly juxtaposed with the Akkadian word that has the identical meaning.  Thus we can also check whether the meaning of the west Semitic root changed over a period of 700 years.  It didn’t!]

 

2.  Amarna Letter EA 296: 18, from Yaxtiru, who likely is allied with Yapaxu’s successor Adda-danu.

 

la-bi-tu = “mudbrick”.

Although having a different ending, that west Semitic word can readily be compared to the following Biblical Hebrew word:

LBNH = “mudbrick”, at Genesis 11:3;  Ezekiel 4: 1.  [This word appears most famously in Exodus, but in the plural.]

 

In classic Biblical Hebrew, in Canaanite, and for that matter in Akkadian as well, the word for “mudbrick” can be viewed as being LB + ending.

 

3.  Amarna Letter EA 292: 29, from Adda-danu, who is Yapaxu’s successor late in Year 14.

 

ba-ni-ti = “I built”.

That west Semitic word compares directly to the following Biblical Hebrew word [and since it’s a verb, there’s not even an archaic case ending to drop here]:

 

BNYTY = “I have built”, at I Kings 8: 13.

 

Conclusion

 

Based on the Amarna Letters from Jerusalem and from the Ayalon Valley just northwest of Jerusalem, it appears that west Semitic words used in the Amarna Age can usually be traced directly to Biblical Hebrew words.  Scholars say that those west Semitic words in the Amarna Letters are “Canaanite”, and are definitely  n-o-t  “Hebrew”.  But that narrow view of what properly constitutes “Hebrew” is not helpful as to the key question, which is whether Amarna Age Canaanite and classic Biblical Hebrew in Iron Age Judah essentially shared the same vocabulary.  Note that in 10 out of 12 cases from Jerusalem and the Ayalon Valley, the root of the old west Semitic word from the mid-14^th century BCE had not changed 700 years later in the time of 8^th - 7^th century BCE Judah.  I tentatively conclude from that small sample size that Amarna Age Canaanite and Iron Age Judah classic Biblical Hebrew essentially shared the same vocabulary.  If the first Hebrews living in the Late Bronze Age committed a portion of the Torah to writing, then the Jews under King Hezekiah in early 7^th century BCE Jerusalem would know the west Semitic vocabulary that was used in that truly ancient writing.  It seems to me that the underlying vocabulary of west Semitic changed little over those 700 years.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois