Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Isaac Fried:

 

You wrote:  “I ignore everything you say about ‘Ugaritic’ as I have no way of verifying its veracity.”

 

Fair enough.  But then let’s discuss the topic I mentioned in passing in my previous post:  what about Chedorlaomer’s title?  Is (YLM the expected Hebrew rendering of any non-biblical rendering of the country-name Elam?  Before we go the scholarly route and dismiss the “four kings against five” as being non-historical because no king of Elam ever came to the Dead Sea to snuff out a 12-year-long rebellion, shouldn’t we slow ourselves down to ask, in the first instance, if Chedorlaomer is in fact said to be the “King of Elam” at Genesis 14: 1?

 

A.  (YLM Is  N-o-t  “Elam”

 

Scholars follow the traditional, non-scholarly view that (YLM at Genesis 14: 1 is referring to the country of Elam, the forerunner of modern Iran east of Mesopotamia.  Before getting to the linguistic analysis of (YLM, note that it makes no historical sense to think of a ruler from far-off Elam east of Mesopotamia coming to the Dead Sea to put down a 12-year-old rebellion by vassals of his.  With there being no historical sense to that traditional analysis [which is nevertheless embraced by most scholars], does (YLM even match linguistically to Elam?

 

The fact of the matter is that there is no equivalent to a yod/Y in any of the secular historical spellings of Elam outside of the Bible, whether Elamite, Sumerian, Babylonian or otherwise.  (YLM is simply not a linguistic match to any historical spelling of the country-name “Elam”.  No such historical spelling features either a vowel dipthong at the beginning, or alternatively a consonantal yod/Y.  The Babylonians called the country to their east Elamtu or KUR elammatum, or they used the Sumerian logogram NIM meaning “highlands”.  Assyrians called that country Elamtu.  The Elamites themselves called their own country Hatamti.  The Akkadian common word “elum” means “high”, and is a popular etymology for the Akkadian name elamtu.  “Elamtu” as an east Semitic country name of southwestern Iran near the Zagros Mountains would be expected to be rendered in Biblical Hebrew as (LMT.  But instead of (LMT, what’s there in the received text of Genesis 14: 1 is (YLM.  It’s by no means a linguistic match.  [It appears that the rest of the Bible picked up this Genesis 14: 1 name and spelling.  Perhaps the rest of the Bible considered (YLM to be, inexplicably, the Hebrew way of spelling (LMT?]  Please note that the modern English rendering, “Elam”, comes from Biblical nomenclature, not from any non-biblical source.  “Elamtu” or “Hatamti” would likely be the English version of this country’s name if Biblical nomenclature were ignored.  [Recall in this connection that the modern English rendering of “Hittite” likewise (i) comes from Biblical nomenclature, not from non-biblical sources, and (ii) reflects a complete misunderstanding of what XTY means in the Patriarchal narratives, where in fact XTY refers to the Hurrians by the Hurrian-based Patriarchal nickname Xu-ti-ya, having nothing whatsoever to do with the Hittites.]

 

It’s hard to believe that (YLM is a non-west Semitic foreign loanword [allegedly being the non-west Semitic proper name of the country east of southern Mesopotamia], when so many Hebrews and Jews have (YLM as their own name.  BDB lists 8 examples of that.  But note that all 8 such examples are post-exilic, whereas chapter 14 of Genesis, by stark contrast, is part of the oldest part of the Bible.  Note also that not too many Biblical Hebrew common words start with (Y.  The one very frequently-attested Hebrew common word that starts with (Y is (YN.  The Assyrian equivalent there is ênu with a circumflex over the E, which may be why “spring [of water]” is spelled with (Y with a yod/Y in Hebrew, whereas the Assyrian equivalent of Elam by contrast is elamtu with no circumflex over the E, so that one would not expect a yod/Y in the Hebrew rendering of elamtu.

 

Finally, Genesis 14: 1-11 never says that this attacking ruler, or any other attacking ruler, came from the “east”.  Thus despite that fact that scholars almost unanimously assert the traditional non-scholarly view that (YLM is “Elam” at Genesis 14: 1, it most assuredly is not!  There’s no historical match, no linguistic match, and no textual match.  Indeed, there’s no match whatsoever of any kind on any level.  Furthermore, not a single one of the four attacking rulers comes from the east;  rather, all four come from north of Canaan, not from east or northeast of Canaan.  University scholars can  s-a-y  that (YLM means “Elam” and then try to dismiss the text as allegedly being manifestly non-historical, but in fact the Biblical author was saying nothing about Elam, nor would any of his contemporary audience have thought that he was saying anything about far-off, totally irrelevant Elam east of Mesopotamia.

 

B.  (YLM = (LM

 

In the original version of the text, (YLM was almost certainly just (LM, without the yod/Y.  As such, in the original text, the defective spelling (LM in this proper name would not have been distinguishable, out of context, from the word (WLM that is used eight times as a Hebrew common word in the Patriarchal narratives, including in the immediately preceding chapter at Genesis 13: 5.  In defective spelling, (WLM, meaning “eternity”, was likely (LM, with the vav/W being a plene spelling element that would not be there in the original defective spelling.  Indeed, the Ugaritic spelling of the west Semitic word for “eternity” is simply ‘lm [with no yod].

 

Subject to only a handful of exceptions, the spelling of Hebrew  c-o-m-m-o-n  words in the Patriarchal narratives is indistinguishable from the spelling of Hebrew common words in II Samuel.  That’s because the same person, or the same group of scribes, in the late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem of King Josiah both (i) composed and wrote down II Samuel, and (ii) transformed the vast bulk of the truly ancient Patriarchal narratives from the original cuneiform Late Bronze Age clay tablets into alphabetical Hebrew.  Thus there’s no surprise whatsoever to see the plene spelling of (LM as (WLM at Genesis 13: 5, which represents standard Biblical Hebrew spelling circa late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem.  But night and day different from that phenomenon regarding Hebrew  c-o-m-m-o-n  words is the fact that the truly ancient spellings of non-Hebrew  p-r-o-p-e-r  names in the cuneiform original of the Patriarchal narratives were not updated to 7^th century BCE form.  Rather, they were generally recorded verbatim, letter-for-letter in alphabetical Hebrew, except that defective spelling was used [so that most vowels were not reflected by a Hebrew letter].  Non-Hebrew proper names in the Patriarchal narratives do not have plene spelling, but rather have the original defective spelling, whereas by sharp contrast Biblical Hebrew common words in the Patriarchal narratives often feature plene spelling.  [Since cuneiform could not distinguish one guttural from another, naturally there were some mistakes in handling the gutturals in ancient non-Hebrew proper names in the cuneiform original version of the Patriarchal narratives, but that’s not the problem here.]

 

In my view, several centuries later a post-exilic do-gooder editor decided that the title MLK (LM, which was the original version of Chedorlaomer’s title, was too magnificent and god-like to be a suitable title for Chedorlaomer, who clearly is viewed negatively in the Bible.  (LM in a proper name implied (WLM, and MLK (WLM seemed far too grand a title for disliked Chedorlaomer.  So under the guise of “clarifying” the text by merely adding plene spelling [but with other non-Hebrew proper names in the Patriarchal narratives in fact not having plene spelling], a later editor took it upon himself to add in a yod/Y after the first letter in (LM, thereby producing the (YLM that we see today in the received text.  It’s hard to know what (YLM meant, but it’s easy to see that (YLM deftly acted to prevent Chedorlaomer’s title from being viewed as being (LM, implying (WLM.

 

Virtually all scholars see (WLM as being a noun that is derived from the verb stem (LM.  If (YLM were viewed as being a common noun with a west Semitic etymology [as opposed to being a foreign loanword], then (YLM as well could be viewed as being a noun that is derived from the verb stem (LM.  All three of these words would then have had the identical defective spelling:  (LM.  It might be noted that Strong’s goes this route and specifically sees (YLM as deriving from (LM.  The reason why Strong’s etymology is a minority view is not because it wouldn’t be easy to derive (YLM as a noun from the verb (LM linguistically if (YLM were a west Semitic word or name, but rather is because most scholars have preferred to see (YLM as a non-west Semitic loanword, being the foreign name of a foreign country, Elam.  But as noted above, historically “Elam” was never spelled (YLM, as no historical spelling of that country-name features either a vowel dipthong or alternatively a consonantal yod/Y.

 

The original text of Genesis 14: 1 had MLK (LM.  If I may be permitted to mention Ugaritic again, that original title is the well-known kingly reference, mlk ‘lm, that was used exclusively at Ugarit.  The literal meaning is “king eternal”, but at Ugarit mlk ‘lm was used with the following specific meaning:  “all the kings of Ugarit, past, present and future”.  “Chedorlaomer” is the king of Ugarit in Year 13 [per Genesis 14: 4], on the west coast of Syria north of Lebanon [not  e-a-s-t  of Canaan!].  Chedorlaomer has nothing whatsoever to do with far-off, irrelevant Elam.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois