Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Prof. Yigal Levin:

 

You wrote:  “Why in the world would David run to Jerusalem (which at the time was ruled by the Jebusites) with a bloody head?” 

 

To show one’s complete victory over a great foe, the slain foe’s head was paraded around in an important place, while his armor was deposited elsewhere, and his decapitated body was perhaps put in a third place.  See I Samuel 31: 8-10 regarding what happened to Saul.

 

David is showing the people of the most important city in south-central Canaan, including in particular the Hurrian [“Jebusite”] ruling class of Jerusalem, that David is a powerful warrior.  Many Hebrews lived peacefully in Jerusalem, which was the last city in Canaan still dominated by Hurrian nobles:  “As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out;  but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day.”  Joshua 15: 63.  This show of David’s strength early on to the Hurrian nobles of Jerusalem was one reason why David was eventually able to take Jerusalem from the Hurrians/“Jebusites” without a fight.

 

The main problem has been that people don’t understand that “Jebusites” is a Patriarchal nickname for the Hurrians, which was continued to be used by later Biblical authors.  So one sees comments like this:  “One even conjectures that David threw Goliath’s head over the walls of Philistine-held Jerusalem.”  David Tsumura,“The First Book of Samuel” (2007), p. 468.  The linguistic basis for YBWSY being a Hurrian personal name that is used as a Patriarchal nickname for the Hurrians is fairly easy to see if one bears in mind that more Hurrian names started with the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable than in any other way.  Out of necessity, the Jewish scribe in late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem who transformed the original mid-14^th century BCE cuneiform tablets containing the Patriarchal narratives into alphabetical Hebrew had to come up with some Hebrew letter to render the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable.  He wisely chose:  Hebrew yod/Y.  If and only if one views Hebrew yod/Y in the rendering of Hurrian names as representing the Hurrian true vowel A does the name YBWSY make historical sense.  And then the story of David taking Goliath’s head to Jerusalem also makes sense. 

 

 

Throughout much of the Hebrew Bible there is a completely unappreciated continuing theme:  the Hebrews gradually take over Canaan from the formerly mighty Hurrians, pursuant to divine Will.  A late chapter in that centuries-long saga is when the Hurrian nobles cede Jerusalem itself to King David.  The Hebrews took very great pride in the fact that the Hebrews had succeeded to the land formerly dominated in the Late Bronze Age by the sophisticated, powerful Hurrian charioteers of old. 

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois