Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Prof. Yigal Levin:

 

You wrote:  “Karl, I would love to see where you're getting this from. As far as I know, the answer to David's question is no: there is now known evidence, outside of the Bible itself, that a people/tribe called Amalek ever existed. The fact that later writers, already with the biblical text, identified Arabian tribes that they were familiar with with the biblical Amalek is not proof of anything. By the way, the same is true for the Midianites, the Gorgashites, the Jebusites and several other groups.”

 

1.  Amalekites, Girgashites and Jebusites are all attested Hurrian personal names, which the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives cleverly used as apt nicknames for the Hurrians of his day.  See my prior post for a thumbnail linguistic analysis of those three names.

 

2.  The “Midianites” are people from historical Mitanni in eastern Syria.  Books in the Bible after the Patriarchal narratives stretch that a bit to include in such term people from that area long after the Hurrian state of Mitanni itself had gone extinct. 

 

The Ishmaelites who buy Joseph as a slave are from Mitanni [with some Ishmaelites having settled even further east, in Assyria, per Genesis 25: 18], so they are “Midianites”.  That word is spelled in two slightly different ways in chapter 37 of Genesis:  MDYN-YM at Genesis 37: 28;  as opposed to a slightly simplified spelling of MDN-YM at Genesis 37: 36.  Taking off the -YM west Semitic standard suffix meaning “people”, the country name that remains is MDYN or MDN.

 

It is likely that the mid-14^th century BCE scribe who recorded Hurrian names in cuneiform in the Patriarchal narratives was aware of the various ways to write “Mitanni” in cuneiform:  (i) the ultra-formal 7-syllable version that is found exclusively in the royal Mitanni letter:  Mi-i-id-ta-a – an-ni;  (ii) the 5-syllable version used once in the Amarna Letters (EA 56: 39) and also sometimes used in Hittite cuneiform:  Mi-id-ta – an-ni;  (iii) the 4-syllable version used on one other occasion in the Amarna Letters (EA 58: 5) as well as at times in Hittite cuneiform [where the cuneiform sign -ta-, which can be either -da- or -ta-, is shown here as -d/ta-]:  Mi-d/ta – an-ni;  and (iv) the greatly shortened 3-syllable version of this name that is the most common version in the Amarna Letters (EA 85: 51;  86: 12;  90: 20, etc.):  Mi-d/ta-ni.  In creating names for two of Keturah’s sons who will be sent east, to the east country of Mitanni, being Keturah’s ancestral homeland [which is the first occasion in the Bible when one sees MDYN, and also MDN, at Genesis 25: 2], and knowing that a majority of proper names in the Patriarchal narratives have either four or three Hebrew letters, it is not surprising that the Hebrew author chose the 4-syllable and 3-syllable attested versions of this name.

 

The scribe in late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem who transformed the original cuneiform version of these names into alphabetical Hebrew decided to render the cuneiform sign -d/ta- as dalet/D (in both versions of this name).  Note also:  (i) the first of the doubled Hurrian consonants N was omitted as a matter of course, and (ii) also as a matter of course, the resulting Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable was rendered by Hebrew yod/Y.  On that basis, these two versions of “Mitanni” from the Amarna Letters match up directly to MDYN and MDN as the names of two of Keturah’s sons in the Patriarchal narratives, as follows:

 

(1)  Mi-d/ta – an-ni = Mi-da-a-ni = MDYN

(2)  Mi-d/ta-ni = Mi-da-ni = MDN

 

These same two spellings were then carried over into chapter 37 of Genesis in characterizing certain Ishmaelite traders as being from Mitanni:  MDYN and MDN.  When Exodus was composed later, the longer, more accurate version, MDYN, was exclusively used to refer to the Late Bronze Age Hurrian state in eastern Syria:  Mitanni [or, in context, to the former state of Mitanni].

 

*       *       *

 

Prof. Levin, the Patriarchal narratives are not talking about fictional people who never existed historically.  What would be the point of that?  Rather, the last 40 chapters of Genesis refer to (i) XRY as the historical name of the Hurrians [Genesis 14: 6];  (ii) in most cases, however, Hurrian personal names are used as clever, apt nicknames for the Hurrians, including the three names you mention above, Amalekites, Girgashites, Jebusites;  and (iii) the Late Bronze Age Hurrian state of Mitanni is referred to by its historical name:  Mi-d/ta – an-ni = Mi-da-a-ni = MDYN.

 

If you would be willing to consider that, out of dire necessity, a Jewish scribe in late 7^th century BCE made the wise choice of using alphabetical Hebrew yod/Y to render the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable [in transforming these 14^th century BCE Hurrian names in cuneiform into alphabetical Hebrew], then all of these names suddenly make complete historical sense.  More Hurrian names begin with the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable than in any other way, like A-bu-u-$e-ya/YBWSY/“Jebusites”.  So a Hebrew letter had to be used to record that commonplace Hurrian phenomenon, and Hebrew yod/Y worked nicely.

 

Once you recognize that Hebrew yod/Y was used to render the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable, surely you can then see that:  Mitanni  =  Mi-d/ta – an-ni  =  Mi-da-a-ni  =  MDYN.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois