Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Isaac Fried:

 

The name “Jacob” (i) does not have YH, and (ii) is not a west Semitic name ending in -YH that honors YHWH.  Beginning with I Kings, there are dozens and dozens of west Semitic names ending in -YH that honor YHWH.  By stark contrast, prior to II Samuel there is not a single individual character’s name that is a west Semitic name ending in -YH that honors YHWH.  Who or what caused that sea change in II Samuel?  My contention, contra the scholars, is that King David is given the great Biblical honor of being the first person to give one or more of his sons a west Semitic name ending in -YH that honors YHWH. 

 

But scholars see the name of King David’s scribe at Jerusalem, $RYH at II Samuel 8: 17, as being a west Semitic name ending with -YH that honors YHWH.  Yet scholars generally agree that the name )WRYH [misleadingly transliterated by KJV as “Uriah”] at II Samuel 11: 3 is not a west Semitic name ending in -YH that honors YHWH.  $RYH and )WRYH lived at the same place in the same time.  Shouldn’t their names be conceptualized as follows?  $R -Y   [-H];  )W-R  -Y   [-H].  You don’t think the fathers of $RYH and )WRYH had honored YHWH, do you?  You don’t think that either $RYH or )WRYH at birth was a Hebrew, do you?  Aren’t these foreigners who were absorbed by the ever-expanding Hebrews under mighty King David?  King David inherited that scribe when he took Jerusalem;  King David never had a scribe before he got to Jerusalem, as far as we can tell from the Biblical testimony;  per Joshua 15: 63, we know that there were still many non-Hebrews, the Jebusites, living in Jerusalem in King David’s day;  and another contemporary of $RYH, and of )WRYH the “Hittite”, is )RWNH the "Jebusite", with all three foreign names having been Semiticized by adding a final -H, which Semiticization shows that these three people of foreign ancestry came from families who had been living in Jerusalem for many generations.  Not every person in Canaan had been born a Hebrew with a good Hebrew name.  Not.  Rather, many such people, who had not been born Hebrews and who did not have good Hebrew names, were absorbed as a necessary consequence of King David’s expansionism.

 

Isaac Fried, if you could find it within yourself to recognize that not everyone in the Bible was a Hebrew at birth with a good Hebrew name, then you would see that neither $RYH nor )WRYH in King David’s Jerusalem was a Hebrew at birth, and neither of them has a good Hebrew name!  They’re foreign names, which have been Semiticized by adding a final -H at the end.  They are  n-o-t  good Hebrew names, because those two fellows were not Hebrews at birth.  Yes, some later Hebrews and Jews after King David’s time were given the name $RYH as a good Hebrew name of a Hebrew:  $R-YH.  But King David’s scribe, by sharp contrast, was not a Hebrew at birth and does not have a good Hebrew name.  His name should, rather, be conceptualized as being:  $R  -Y   [-H].  The four Hebrew letters are the same, but given the particular context, it’s a completely different name than, for example, the $RYH who at II Kings 25: 18 is the Hebrew chief priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, who indeed was a Hebrew at birth who had a good Hebrew name that is a west Semitic name ending in -YH that honors YHWH.

 

Isaac Fried, not every person in Canaan was a Hebrew at birth with a good Hebrew name.  In my opinion, King David’s scribe $RY-H was not a Hebrew at birth and he does not have a Hebrew name.  Rather, the final -H in his name is a Semiticization of a foreign name [just as is the case with his contemporaries in King David’s Jerusalem:  )WRY-H the “Hittite” and )RWN-H the “Jebusite”].  Accordingly, King David should rightly be accorded the great honor of being the first person in the Bible who gives one or more of his sons a west Semitic name ending in -YH that honors YHWH.  Persons with foreign names [such as King David’s scribe] should not be accorded that great honor, which rightly belongs to King David.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois