Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Isaac Fried:

 

1.  You wrote:  “The editor of Genesis knew very well what עשו means.”

 

That’s almost right.  The author of Genesis 25: 25 definitely knew what the name “Esau” means, that’s for sure.  But he wasn’t an “editor”.  No, he was the guy who came up with the name “Esau” in the first place.

 

2.  You wrote:  “He even resorted to a little sly visual obfuscation by writing ayin for aleph, and waw for bet….”

 

No, you’re changing the Hebrew letters in the text there.  There’s no need for that.  As we will see, ($W has an underlying meaning that perfectly describes Esau’s appearance at his birth, with there being no need whatsoever to change any of the Hebrew letters.

 

3.  You wrote:  “He even resorted to a little sly visual obfuscation by writing ayin for aleph, and waw for bet to turn the alien אשאב or אישאב into עשו, a clever spelling modification to take both the eye and the mind away from idols and into thinking about עשב 'grass'.  The theophoric איש I$ is very common, as in ישמעאל I$MAEL, שמעון 

$IMON, אכיש AKIY$, כמוש KMO$ (KMO-I$?), and many more.”

 

)Y$ is not present in a single one of the names that you cite!  It’s not there in “Esau”, or “Ismael”, or “Simon”.

 

4.  You wrote:  “Likewise the theophoric אב AB.”

 

Yes, )B means “[the divine] Father” in a proper name, and as such is a theophoric.  But the vav/W as the third letter in ($W/“Esau” is not )B, for heaven’s sake.

 

5.  There’s no )Y$- in ($W, and there’s no -)B in ($W either.

 

Rather, we should look at the Hebrew letters in the received text, as is, and ask if Esau’s mother, Rebekah, who hailed from Bronze Age Syria, would have viewed those three letters as forming a name and word that perfectly reflect what Esau looked like at his birth.  There’s no need to change a single letter here.  What’s needed, by contrast, is to be willing to  a-s-k  how Rebekah from Bronze Age Syria would have viewed the name “Esau”.  After all, why would the Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives have gone to all the trouble of portraying Rebekah as being born and raised to adulthood at Harran, if he didn’t want his audience to ask themselves how a woman from Bronze Age Syria would view the name ($W?  Isaac Fried, certainly you don’t think that Rebekah’s mother out in eastern Syria spoke Biblical Hebrew as her native language, do you?  Aren’t you curious as to how Rebekah and her mother would have viewed the name ($W?  If the Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives didn’t want us to think like that, then why on earth would he portray Rebekah and her mother as being native to eastern Syria, with Rebekah giving her firstborn son a name that makes no sense on any level in west Semitic? 

 

At least you don’t take the scholarly view that the author of Genesis 25: 25 was like modern scholars themselves in having no earthly idea what the name “Esau” means.  But unfortunately you seem to accept the [100% erroneous] scholarly view that the author of Genesis 25: 25 was incapable of thinking how Rebekah from Bronze Age Syria would have viewed the name ($W.  The key to solving this 3,500-year-old Biblical mystery is simply to ask how Rebekah would have viewed the name ($W.  Then the meaning and etymology of the name ($W will become clear, and we will see how truly brilliant the author of the Patriarchal narratives was, and how ancient as a written text and how historically accurate the Patriarchal narratives are.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois