Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

It is my opinion that a combination of Hebrew grammar, the ordinary meaning of Hebrew common words, and an historical approach to Biblical proper names will enable us to resolve one of the oldest and most perplexing Bible mysteries of all time.  Why on earth did Moses order the Israelites to attack King Og and take over Bashan [Gilead, east of the Jordan River and east of the Sea of Galilee, being the northern Transjordan, just south of Syria], at Numbers 21: 33?

 

1.  Bashan was not on the route of the Conquest.  [It’s too far north and east.]

 

2.  And Bashan was not part of the originally Promised Land, either, which in the Patriarchal narratives is confined to Canaan, whose eastern border is the Jordan River.  The Promised Land is “Canaan”, per Genesis 17: 8, Exodus 6: 4, and Leviticus 14: 34.  YHWH clarifies at Numbers 34: 11-12 that the eastern border of the Promised Land is the Jordan River.  Moreover, Moses is not allowed to enter the Promised Land, yet Moses sure as heck rampages all over King Og’s Bashan!

 

How then to explain Numbers 12: 33, 35?  “And they [Moses and the Israelites] turned and went up by the way of Bashan:  and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he, and all his people, to the battle at Edrei.  … So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive:  and they possessed his land.”

 

The keys to unraveling this longstanding Biblical mystery are:  (i) recognizing per Hebrew grammar that XRB-H at Exodus 3: 1 is a common word meaning “desert”, which could potentially apply to any awesome mountain “in the desert”, including a desert mountain in the northern Transjordan, with XRB-H not being a proper name meaning “Mt. Horeb” or “Mt. Sinai” that mandates a locale of southern inland Sinai;  (ii) giving MDYN [at Exodus 3: 1 and elsewhere in Exodus and Genesis] its historical meaning in a Late Bronze Age historical context, namely “Mitanni”, located just northeast of the northern Transjordan;  and (iii) understanding that “serv[ing] God” at “this mountain” at Exodus 3: 12 means, given the ordinary meaning of the Hebrew common word (BD, that the Israelites are to honor YHWH continuously in that location, with “this mountain” being part of the land that the Israelites are divinely fated to inhabit, rather than “this mountain” being [as traditionally thought] Mt. Sinai, far south of the land that the Israelites are divinely fated to possess.

 

Jabal al-Druze, being a magnificent mountain in the desert just north of the eastern Transjordan, meets all of the above criteria perfectly.  It’s an awesome divine-like mountain “in the desert”/XRB-H, as required by Exodus 3: 1.  Also fully in accordance with Exodus 3: 1, Jabal al-Druze is located just a little southwest of historical MDYN [the homeland of Moses’ in-laws], that is, historical Mitanni in the Late Bronze Age, with Greater Mitanni having included much of Syria [but not the Transjordan].  And it’s within King Og’s Bashan, so that by conquering Bashan “this mountain” became a permanent part of the land that the Israelites were divinely fated to inhabit, where the Israelites were to “serve [(BD] God” forevermore, per Exodus 3: 12.

 

The reason  w-h-y  Moses insisted on attacking King Og and taking his land of Bashan at Numbers 21: 33, even though Bashan was not on the Exodus route and was not part of the originally Promised Land, is this.  Jabal al-Druze is a “desert”/XRB mountain located in Bashan, where Moses had encountered the burning bush at Exodus 3: 1 after leading his father-in-law’s flock there [near MDYN/Mitanni, where Moses’ in-laws lived].  And Jabal al-Druze is “this mountain”, per Exodus 3: 12, at which Moses was divinely commanded to “serve God” forevermore.  In order to honor that divine commandment given at Exodus 3: 12, Moses  h-a-d  to attack and take over King Og’s Bashan, whose northeast border was the “desert”/XRB mountain near MDYN/Mitanni where Moses’ in-laws lived:  Jabal al-Druze.

 

The text of Exodus is accurately telling us what happened in the northern Transjordan in the Late Bronze Age and why, if we don’t fight the text too much, and if we are willing to apply an historical understanding to the name MDYN in the text.  Biblical “Midian”/MDYN = historical Mitanni.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois