accepted, theory that Ḫabiri in the TA letters is the cuneiform equivalent
of the OT (
Hebrew characters). The equation presents no philological difficulty:
Ass. ḫ often represents a foreign (Hebrew characters); and Eerdmans' statement (AT Studien, ii. 64), that the sign ḫa never stands for (Hebrew characters) (if true) is worthless,
for Ḫa-za-ḳi-ya-u = (Hebrew characters) shows that Ass. a may become in OT i, and
this is all that it is necessary to prove. The historical objections
vanish if the Ḫabiri be identified, not with the Israelitish invaders after
the Exodus, but with an earlier immigration of Semitic nomads into
Palestine, amongst whom the ancestors of Israel were included. The
chief uncertainty arises from the fact that the phonetic writing Ḫa-bi-ri
occurs only in a limited group of letters,—those of 'Abd-ḫiba of
Jerusalem (179, 180 [182], 183, 185). The ideogram SA. GAS ('robbers')
in other letters is conjectured to have the same value, but this is not
absolutely demonstrated. Assuming that Wi. and others are right in
equating the two, the Ḫabiri are in evidence over the whole country,
occasionally as auxiliaries of the Egyptian government, but chiefly as
its foes. The inference is very plausible that they were the roving
Bedouin element of the population, as opposed to the settled inhabitants,—presumably
a branch of the great Aramæan invasion which was then
overflowing Mesopotamia and Syria (see above, p. 206; cf. Wi. AOF,
iii. 90 ff., KAT3, 196 ff.; Paton, Syr. and Pal. 111 ff.). There is thus a
strong probability that (Hebrew characters) was originally the name of a group of
tribes which invaded Palestine in the 15th cent. B.C., and that it was
afterwards applied to the Israelites as the sole historic survivors of the
immigrants.—Etymologically, the word has usually been interpreted as
meaning 'those from beyond' the river (cf. (Hebrew characters), Jos. 242f. 14f.; and
on that assumption, the river is certainly not the Tigris (De.), and
almost certainly not the Jordan (We. Kau]. Sta.), but (in accordance
with prevailing tradition) the (Hebrew characters) of the OT, the Euphrates, 'beyond'
which lay Ḥarran, the city whence Abraham set out. Hommel's view
(AHT, 252 ff.) has no probability (cf. Dri. 1392). The vb. (Hebrew characters), however,
does not necessarily mean to 'cross' (a stream); it sometimes means
simply to 'traverse' a region (Jer. 26); and in this sense Spiegelberg
has recently (1907) revived an attractive conjecture of Goldziher (Mythos,
p. 66), that (Hebrew characters) signifies 'wanderers'—nomads (OLz. x. 618 ff.).[1]
21. The father of all the sons of 'Ēber] The writer has
apparently borrowed a genealogical list of the descendants
21. It is doubtful if the text is in order. First, it is extremely likely
that the introduction to the section on Shem in J would require modification
to prevent contradiction with v.22f. (P). Then, the omission of the
logical subj. to (Hebrew characters) is suspicious. The Pu. of this vb. never dispenses*
- ↑ In Egyptian texts from Thothmes III. to Ramses IV., the word 'Apuriu ('Apriu) occurs as the name of a foreign population in Egypt; and had been identified by Chabas with the Hebrews of OT. The identification has been generally discarded, on grounds which seemed cogent; but has recently been revived by Hommel (AHT, 259), and
