Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Ezekiel 16:3 can be viewed as being an accurate one-sentence summary of the Patriarchal narratives and of the historical background of the Patriarchal Age:

 

“And say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem;  Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan;  thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a [XTY].”

 

The Amorites were west Semitic-speakers, and in this poetic passage, “Amorite” should be given an expansive meaning of “native west Semitic speakers:  Amorites, Canaanites and Hebrews”.

 

XTYis xu-ti-ya, the most frequently-attested Hurrian name at Nuzi in the Late Bronze Age.  92 different people at the Hurrian province of Nuzi bore that name!  Xu-ti means “to praise”, and -ya is a theophoric, which in a Hurrian name implies “Teshup”.  So the classic Hurrian name xu-ti-ya means “Praise Teshup”.  Far from my view of XTY/xu-ti-ya having been “refuted”, as George Athas’s post implies, that is basically the view of leading scholar Edward Lipinski:

 

“Ewri’s qualification H-XTY suggests that the man [‘Uriah the Hittite’/XTY] was regarded as a foreigner, but one might surmise that XTY was his proper name, viz. the frequent Hurrian name Xu-ti-ya.”  “Itineraria Phoenicia” (2004), p. 500.

 

The final Hebrew alphabetical yod/Y does double duty in these non-Semitic names.  On the one hand, it’s the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable, here in the form of -ya or -ia.  But on the other hand, the final yod/Y is also the generic west Semitic suffix that means “people”.  So XTY means “the Praise Teshup people” [where -Y first means “Teshup” in Hurrian, and then also means “people” in Hebrew], that is, the Hurrians.

 

Please note that XTY has  n-o-t-h-i-n-g  whatsoever to do with the classic Hittites from eastern Anatolia, who were referred to as “Hatti” in the ancient world [and who were never in Canaan!].  “Hittites” is a modern English word that is a KJV mis-transliteration of the Hebrew XTY;  this mis-transliteration created a modern word that has no equivalent in the ancient world.  Rather, XTY/xu-ti-ya is a colorful Patriarchal nickname for the Hurrians.

 

What Ezekiel 16: 3 is saying is what I pointed out in my last post:  most of the married couples in the Patriarchal narratives, including all three Patriarchs, follow a very specific pattern.  The husband, and all his paternal ancestors, are native west Semitic speakers.  The wife’s mother, by contrast, is an ethnic Hurrian.  Those are the people who, per Ezekiel 16: 3, came to dominate Jerusalem and Canaan in due course:  the Hebrews.  “[T]hy father was an Amorite [that is, a native west Semitic speaker], and thy mother a [XTY/Hurrian].”

 

Not only is Ezekiel 16: 3 accurate Biblically, but it’s also accurate historically as well.  The key figure in Canaan who immediately pre-dates the first Hebrews, and who overlaps with the first Hebrews, is the Amorite princeling Milk-i-Ilu of the Ayalon Valley, just west of Jerusalem.  His name is honored at Genesis 46: 17, in that one of Jacob’s descendants who moves to Egypt with the Hebrews has been given the name Milk-i-Ilu:  MLK  -Y-  )L.  [To make sure we know what’s going on, MLK  -Y-  )L is paired with the XBR root of XBR-WN/xa-bu-ru-u-ne/“Hebron” at Genesis 46: 17.]  Historical Amorite princeling Milk-i-Ilu was an “Amorite”, even in the narrowest sense of that word.  His wife’s mother was a Hurrian who was married to the Hurrian princeling Tagi, as we know from the Amarna Letters.  Yet their firstborn son, Yapaxu [whose name makes good sense in both west Semitic and Hurrian], became the greatest threat to the first Hebrews.  Yapaxu hated tent-dwellers, and was a bona fide threat to drive the first Hebrews out of their beloved valley.  By sharp contrast, the first Hebrews had been in confederate relationship with the longtime ruler of the Ayalon Valley, Milk-i-Ilu, whose Biblical nickname is “Mamre the Amorite” at Genesis 14: 13.  Year 14, referenced as being “the 14^th year” at Genesis 14: 5, was the approximate historical year when Milk-i-Ilu died and the first Hebrews now had to contend with his tent dweller-hating firstborn son, Yapaxu.  Thank goodness, Yapaxu’s reign lasted less than one full year, so the Hebrews could remain in the valley and prosper on a modest scale.

 

Thus I see Ezekiel as being accurate both as a one-sentence summary of the Patriarchal narratives, and as a one-sentence summary of the traumatic historical events that gave rise to the birth of the Hebrews as a coherent, distinct, YHWH-loving people in Year 14.  7 out of 7 firstborn sons are portrayed in the Patriarchal narratives as getting the shaft and properly so:  Haran, Lot, Ishmael, Esau, Reuben, Er, Manasseh.  That reflects the historical fact that firstborn son Yapaxu was a dire threat to the Hebrews’ very existence in the year [Year 14] in which the Hebrews first came together as a distinct people in Canaan, whereas Yapaxu’s younger brother was more like their father Milk-i-Ilu and allied with the tent-dwellers [per Amarna Letter EA 298].

 

If George Athas were right and my views have been “refuted”, with the Patriarchal narratives being late as a written text and largely fictional, then it would not be possible for virtually the entirety of the Patriarchal narratives to match up so closely, down to the most minute details of names and specific years, with what is historically attested in the Amarna Letters.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois

 

P.S.  As to TMN( [mis-transliterated as “Timna”] at Genesis 36: 12, that is ta-ma-ni Semiticized or ta-am-ni Semiticized.  Ta-ma or ta-am is a Hurrian root of the following Hurrian names:  Ta-ma-a-a, Ta-a-ma-ku, and the woman’s name Ta-am-$i.  -a-a-, -ku, -$i and -ni are all standard Hurrian suffixes.  The final alphabetical ayin/( is the old-style way of showing that a Hurrian name has been Semiticized, as in BR( and BR$( at Genesis 14: 2.  The Semiticization of the name TMN( [“Timna”] means that this Hurrian woman married a native west Semitic-speaking son of Esau and though merely a concubine, threw in her lot with Esau’s native west Semitic-speaking descendants.