Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

To understand the three levels of meaning of the Biblical Hebrew word PR(H [“Pharaoh”], whose first Biblical usage is in the Patriarchal narratives, we must first consider how that word PR(H was written down in the first place.  In order to be old and accurate, the Patriarchal narratives must have been recorded in writing in south-central Canaan in the Bronze Age.  The only writing system known in south-central Canaan that was sophisticated enough to write down the Patriarchal narratives in the Bronze Age was Akkadian cuneiform;  such writing system indeed is heavily attested in Canaan, including south-central Canaan, but only in the 14^th century BCE.  Thus in order to be old and accurate, the Patriarchal narratives must have been written down in that particular time period, on clay tablets, using Akkadian cuneiform like the Amarna Letters, but instead of writing down Akkadian words, writing down Canaanite/pre-Hebrew words.  Knowing both the Amarna Letters and Akkadian cuneiform inside and out as we do [thanks to the marvelous work of countless university scholars on those two fronts], what does that tell us as to how the Biblical Hebrew word PR(H would have been initially recorded in writing?

 

The Achilles heel of using Akkadian cuneiform to record west Semitic words and names is that Akkadian cuneiform heth/X had to be pressed into service to represent many different Hebrew letters:  “[I]n the El Amarna tablets the h,  ḥ, ǵ, and sometimes even ’ and ‘ are represented by ḫ....”  Yohanan Aharoni, “The Land of the Bible” (1979), p. 113.  Let me paraphrase that by saying that in final position, Akkadian cuneiform heth could represent any one or more of the following alphabetical Hebrew letters:  regular h, emphatic H, aleph, ayin, or heth.  In looking at PR(H in the received text, what we are seeing as the last letter there is either regular h or emphatic H.  As discussed in my prior post, emphatic H works very nicely:  P R (H = pA ra aH = “Palace of The Ra”, being a fine generic reference to the king of Egypt/Pharaoh.

 

But in my opinion the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives also wanted us to consider the other possible endings to this same Biblical Hebrew word, per the Akkadian cuneiform rendering, as a series of deliberate and sophisticated puns as it were.  Akkadian cuneiform heth in final position could represent Hebrew aleph/):  now suddenly the scholarly interpretation of PR(H as being Egyptian praA makes sense, for the first time.  That final Hebrew he/H in the received alphabetical text could just as easily be Hebrew aleph/), because both such Hebrew alphabetical letters were represented by the same Akkadian cuneiform sign in final position:  Akkadian cuneiform heth.  We know from the Boundary Stelae at Akhenaten’s new capital city that praA was sometimes used to refer to Pharaoh in the mid-14^th century BCE, so that meaning works very nicely.  Note also that “Great House”/praA has a quite similar meaning to “Palace of The Ra”/pA ra aH, even though the Egyptian spellings are totally different;  the sounds in Egyptian may even have been roughly similar, perhaps close enough for a natural pun.

 

But now, at long last, we get to the good part.  Given that the last letter in PR(H is Akkadian cuneiform heth, the last alphabetical Hebrew letter in that Biblical Hebrew word could also have been intended to be:  Hebrew heth/X.  On that third level of meaning, that word could now be viewed as being P R (X, which is pA ra ax.  The final element in that name could be alternatively [and less formally] transliterated as a-khe:  it’s the a-khe in the name “A-khe-n-aten”!  Whereas “Akhenaten” means “Devoted to Aten”, pA ra ax : pA ra a-khe : P R (X means:  “Devoted to The [One and Only] Ra”.  And remember that although Akhenaten named his first four daughters after Aten, he then switched gears and named his last two daughters after Ra, indicating that by Year 14, fairly late in his reign, his preferred nomenclature no longer was Aten, but now was Ra.  That is to say, “Devoted to The [One and Only] Ra”/P R (X is but a Biblically “updated” version of his older historical name, “Devoted to Aten”/Akhe-n-Aten.

 

One big impediment to seeing the Patriarchal Age as being the Amarna Age has heretofore been the claim that the name “Akhenaten” does not appear in the Biblical text.  But it does!  Repeatedly.  The name “Akhe-n-Aten” has simply been updated to “Akhe-pA-Ra”, per Akhenaten’s switch after about Year 12 or so to preferring Ra or pA ra to Aten [itn].  A Biblically updated version of Akhenaten’s historical name is there, big as life, all over the received text of the Patriarchal narratives, under the somewhat misleading alphabetical spelling PR(H : “Pharaoh” : pA ra ax : pA ra a-khe : P R (X : “Devoted to The [One and Only] Ra” : Akhe-n-Aten : Akhe-pA-Ra.

 

The Patriarchal narratives are much older, and much more historically accurate, than university scholars realize.  We have just solved the 3,000-year-old mystery of why the Biblical Hebrew word “Pharaoh” ends in Hebrew he/H, not in Hebrew aleph/).  Just think Akkadian cuneiform, and the solution to this 3,000-year-old problem is virtually self-evident.

 

When you see “P R (H, king of Egypt” at Genesis 41: 46, that’s “Akhenaten [Akhe-pA-Ra : P R (X], king of Egypt”, where the alphabetical Hebrew he/H in the received text reflects an original Akkadian cuneiform heth, which could just as easily be [and be intended to be] alphabetical Hebrew heth/X.  Yes!

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois