Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Jerry Shepherd:

 

You wrote, concerning Zechariah 9: 10:  “ ‘From sea to sea’ probably refers to the Mediterranean and either of the two arms of the Red Sea.”

 

You are interpreting the Hebrew word YM as follows:  (i) it means “sea”;  (ii) it may well imply, without necessarily mandating, “Mediterranean Sea” [even though there is no explicit reference here to the Great Sea];  and (iii) it does not mean, at least here, the Dead Sea.

 

At Zechariah 9: 10, no qualifier is added, so YM also could [at least out of context] conceivably be referring to a fresh water lake, namely the Sea of Galilee.  See Numbers 34: 11, which uses YM to refer to the Sea of Galilee, which is a fresh water lake;  there, this identification is clarified by adding “Chinnereth” after YM.

 

If one wanted to limit YM to only salt water seas, thereby excluding the Sea of Galilee and any other freshwater lakes, but by no means necessarily excluding the Mediterranean Sea [which is comprised of salt water], then one might add after YM  the phrase:  H-MLX, with such phrase meaning “the salt”.  Yes, “sea the-salt” might refer to the Dead Sea, which is a salt water lake, but “sea the-salt” could also refer to the Mediterranean Sea, which is a salt water sea.

 

I interpret YM H-MLX [“sea the-salt”] at Genesis 14: 3 as referring, at least on one level, to the Mediterranean Sea, and not as necessarily referring to the Dead Sea.  Since the Mediterranean Sea is a salt water sea, it could be referenced, if a bit ambiguously, by the Biblical Hebrew term YM H-MLX/“sea the-salt”.

 

The reason for considering that “unorthodox” interpretation of the intended meaning of YM H-MLX at Genesis 14: 3 is that then the “four kings against five” [Genesis 14: 9] would match up with exactitude to what is attested historically, instead of being completely unattested.  In Year 14 [cf. “In the 14^th year” at Genesis 14: 5], historically, a coalition comprised of a king of Ugarit [whose pejorative Patriarchal nickname is “Chedorlaomer”/KDRL(MR, which in Ugaritic [kdr l ‘mr] means “the line of kings of Ugarit falls into excrement”], a fearsome Hittite king [who had gained the Hittite throne by murdering his own older brother named Tidal, hence the nasty Patriarchal nickname “Tidal”, which in context is effectively calling mighty Hittite King Suppiluliuma “Murderer”], a Hurrian princeling [the Hurrian-based Patriarchal nickname “Arioch”], and an Amorite princeling [the west Semitic Patriarchal nickname “Amraphel”] totally defeated five Hurrian city-states, which both historically and Biblically had but four ruling princelings at the time [whose Hurrian-based Patriarchal nicknames are “Bera”, “Birsha”, “Shinab” and “Shemeber”].  The exact ethnicity [but not the historical name] of each one of the 9 historical combatants is accurately represented.  So also is the exact year [Year 14, which is often viewed as being the year of the Second Syrian War, confirming the Year 12 Hittite conquest of Syria in the Great Syrian War], and so also is the precise outcome:  this coalition of four attacking rulers historically utterly destroyed the five rebellious city-states.  Historically this happened north of Canaan, in the Orontes River Valley, not far from the body of water into which the Orontes River empties:  a salt-water sea, the Mediterranean Sea.  [Note the reference to Damascus at Genesis 14: 15, which suggests Syria as the geographical locale of the “four kings against five”.] 

 

If YM H-MLX/“sea the-salt” at Genesis 14: 3 can possibly be viewed as implying the Mediterranean Sea, then  e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g  about Genesis 14: 1-11 checks out historically.  Indeed, the pinpoint accuracy of the Biblical account of the “four kings against five” is in that event so stunning that surely the Patriarchal narratives must have been recorded in writing shortly after the event, in cuneiform writing, about a year or so after the end of the troubled reign of Egypt’s only monotheistic pharaoh in the mid-14^th century BCE.  [As to cuneiform, look again at Genesis 14: 15.  Logically, the reference there must be to “the Obah”, that is H-WBH, being the historically-attested name of the district of Damascus in the Amarna Letters, not the otherwise completely inexplicable XWBH that we see in the received alphabetical text.  In cuneiform writing, cuneiform heth stood for both Hebrew heth/X and Hebrew he/H, so when this Late Bronze Age cuneiform writing was transformed into alphabetical Hebrew writing for the first time under King Josiah 700 years later, it’s little surprise that the intended Hebrew he/H mistakenly came out as Hebrew heth/X here:  both such alphabetical Hebrew letters are rendered by the same cuneiform sign -- Akkadian heth.  This Biblical text, as a written text, is  r-e-a-l-l-y  old!]

 

Whether the “four kings against five” is historical or not is riding primarily on the Hebrew linguistics question of whether YM H-MLX/“sea the-salt” at Genesis 14: 3 could possibly be interpreted as referring to the Mediterranean Sea, rather than as necessarily referring to the Dead Sea, as heretofore thought.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois