Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III:

 

1.  I agree with your synopsis of Numbers 21.

 

2.  You then wrote:  “Balak in Numbers 22-25 tries to curse the Israelites through Balaam, but that did not work. You will notice that Balak had Moabite and Midian elders try to purchase Balaam to curse the Israelites.”

 

Certainly you would agree that Balaam himself is from eastern Syria, near the Upper Euphrates River.  I believe that is agreed to by all analysts.  Deuteronomy 23: 4;  Numbers 22: 5 

 

At Numbers 31: 8, Balaam is connected with “five kings of MDYN”, who appear to be 5 princelings in the former state of Mitanni in eastern Syria, not long after the central state apparatus of Mitanni had effectively disappeared in the mid-13^th century BCE.  As to their names, in addition to CWR [discussed in #3 below], the most obvious name from Mitanni is XWR, which is the attested name Xu-ú-ra at Mitanni;  that name recalls the Hurrians of Mitanni based on the sound.

 

In connection with the names analyzed at #3 below, it’s very clear that various persons from Mitanni with classic Mitannian names are involved here.  To me, that backs up, rather than undercuts, my assertion that Biblical “Midian”/MDYN = historical Mitanni, the Late Bronze Age Hurrian state in eastern Syria.

 

3.  You wrote:  “This gives even more credence to the story that Midian is near the Dead Sea since it was the Israelites who put to death all the inhabitants of Midian after the "Sin of Baal-Peor" (Numbers 25).”

 

Actually, Numbers 25 reports the killing of only one person from MDYN:  Cosbi/KZBY, daughter to Zur/CWR.  Numbers 25: 15.  The name CWR of a man from MDYN/Mitanni is redolent of $u-ú-ri, an attested name at Mitanni.  At Mitanni, a sin or emphatic sin/ssade most often comes out as a shin/$.  This is a 3-segment name, thus having 3 Hebrew letters.  As with the name XWR above, the Hebrew vav/W here is rendering the Hurrian accented vowel U.

 

As to the woman’s name KZBY, note the following attested woman’s name at Mitanni:  Ki-za-a-a.  If the frequent suffix -ba were added after the root and before the theophoric ending, that name would be Ki-za-ba-ya, which is the Biblical name KZBY.

 

4.  You wrote:  “It does not make any sense for the Israelites to travel over 300 + miles to destroy the inhabitants of Mitanni (if Midian is Mitanni; which it is not) when the scene of the crime with Balaam is near Jericho where the battle against Og, Sihon and Balak had occurred.”

 

I don’t know if I’m quite following you there.  The Israelites never went to Mitanni/MDYN, that’s for sure.  The farthest northeast the Israelites ever got with Moses was the “desert”/XRB mountain Jabal al-Druze, near the city of Ashtaroth, east of the Sea of Galilee in the northern Transjordan.  That’s about 100 miles south of MDYN/Mitanni.  It’s where Moses had led his father-in-law’s flock at Exodus 3: 1 and encountered the burning bush at Exodus 3: 2-4, and it’s the mountain at which YHWH commanded Moses to “serve God” eternally at Exodus 3: 12.  T-h-a-t  indeed is why Moses attacked princeling Og [E-wa-ge] and conquered Bashan for the Israelites.

 

I certainly agree with you that the Israelites then massed for the Conquest at Jericho, far, far south of Bashan.  That’s actually my point, you see.  Bashan was not on the route of the Conquest, not by a long shot;  nor was Bashan part of the originally Promised Land of Canaan, west of the Jordan River.  So then why did Moses march the Israelites up north to Bashan in the northern Transjordan?  The reason, in my opinion, is that Moses was divinely commanded to take over for the Israelites permanent possession of the “desert”/XRB mountain where Moses had seen the burning bush:  Jabal al-Druze, 100 miles south of MDYN/Mitanni, east of the Sea of Galilee near the city of Ashtaroth, in the northern Transjordan.

 

*       *       *

 

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III, I think we’re agreeing on most aspects of what is said in the Bible in these various connections.  The one place where you and I disagree is whether MDYN is way down south in Arabia near Aqaba [the traditional view, but no name MDYN is attested there, and Zipporah of MDYN sure as heck doesn’t act like an Arabian woman, being  w-a-y  too assertive and aggressive, while initially opposing circumcision, so that Zipporah acts  e-x-a-c-t-l-y  as would be expected of a woman from Mitanni], or whether MDYN instead is historical Mitanni in Late Bronze Age eastern Syria.  If it helps clarify my position, the Israelites under Moses’ command never got farther north than the northern Transjordan, being about 100 miles or so south of MDYN/Mitanni. 

 

Balaam is definitely from eastern Syria, so he fits better with 5 princelings of MDYN/Mitanni from eastern Syria than he would with 5 princelings from Arabia near Aqaba!

 

If I’m somehow missing the gist of what you’re saying [since I think I agree with most of your analysis, except the identity of MDYN], please clarify what you’re asserting and then we’ll take a closer look at it, based on the Biblical texts.  We all learn in these exchanges of different points of view, especially if we keep citing and analyzing relevant Bible verses.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois