YHWH: The Original Arabic Meaning

of the Name
God reveals his name to Moses as “I am,” from the Hebrew root .‫ה‬
‫י‬.‫ו‬, “being.” The name YHWH, however, originates in Midian, and
derives from the Arabic term for “love, desire, or passion.”

Prof. Israel Knohl

 Moses before the
burning bush, Marc Chagall 1966, Museum Aan De Stroom

In Exodus chapter 6, after Moses complains about how Pharaoh has increased
Israel’s workload and refused to set them free, God appears to Moses and
reiterates his promise to take Israel out of Egypt and bring them to the Promised
Land.[1] As part of this message, God tells Moses that his name is YHWH, even
though he never shared this name with the patriarchs, and only appeared to them
as El Shaddai:

Exod 6:2
 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am ‫שה וַי ֹּאמֶר‬ ֶׁ ֹ ‫ ַוי ְדַ בֵּר אֱֹלהִים אֶל מ‬ ‫ב‬:‫שמות ו‬
YHWH. 6:3 I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and ‫ ָו ֵא ָרא אֶל ַאב ְָרהָם‬ ‫ג‬:‫ו‬ .‫ֵאלָיו ֲאנִי י ְ־הוָה‬
Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself ‫שמִי‬
ְׁ ‫אֶל יִ ְצחָק ְואֶל יַעֲק ֹב ְּב ֵאל שַׁדָּ י ּו‬
known to them by My name YHWH. .‫יְ־הוָה ֹלא נֹודַ עְתִּ י ָלהֶם‬

The text makes it clear that the name YHWH—known in scholarship as the
Tetragrammaton (Greek for “four letters”)—is of great significance, marking a
new era in ancient Israelite history, but it offers no explanation for its meaning. 
 YHWH as Being
In contrast, God’s earlier revelation at the burning bush, in which Moses is
introduced to this special name for the first time,[2] explains or at least hints at its
meaning:

3:13
 Moses said to God, “When I come to the ‫שה אֶל ָהאֱֹלהִים ִהנֵּה ָאנֹכִי‬ ֶׁ ֹ ‫וַי ֹּאמֶר מ‬ ‫יג‬:‫ג‬
Israelites and say to them ‘The God of your ‫בָא אֶל ְּבנֵי יִש ְָׂר ֵאל וְָאמ ְַרתִּ י ָלהֶם אֱֹלהֵי‬
fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‫ש ָל ַחנִי ֲאלֵיכֶם וְָאמְרּו לִי מַה‬ ְׁ ‫אֲבֹותֵ יכֶם‬
‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” .‫שמֹו מָה אֹמַר ֲא ֵלהֶם‬ ְּׁ
3:14
 And God said to Moses, “I am what I am.” ‫שה ֶא ְהי ֶה ֲאשֶׁר‬ ֶׁ ֹ ‫וַי ֹּאמֶר אֱֹלהִים אֶל מ‬ ‫יד‬:‫ג‬
And He said, “Thus shall you say to the ‫ וַי ֹּאמֶר כ ֹּה ת ֹאמַר ִל ְבנֵי יִש ְָׂראֵל‬.‫ֶא ְהי ֶה‬
Israelites, ‘Ehyeh (I-Am) sent me to you.’” .‫ש ָל ַחנִי ֲאלֵיכֶם‬
ְׁ ‫ֶא ְהי ֶה‬

When Moses asks God his name, God first answers by saying “I am what I am”
and even follows this up with “tell them Ehyeh (I-Am) sent you.” The
word ehyeh (“I am”) sounds very much like YHWH, and is meant as a play on
words, explaining that YHWH’s name means “he will be” or “being.” [3] Thus, God
follows up this implied etymology with the Tetragrammaton:

3:15
 And God said further to Moses, “Thus shall you
speak to the Israelites: ‘YHWH, the God of your ‫וַי ֹּאמֶר עֹוד אֱֹלהִים אֶל מֹשֶׁה כ ֹּה‬ ‫טו‬:‫ג‬
fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and ‫ת ֹאמַר אֶל ְּבנֵי יִש ְָׂר ֵאל י ְ־הוָה אֱֹלהֵי‬
the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This shall be ‫אֲב ֹתֵ יכֶם אֱֹלהֵי ַאב ְָרהָם אֱֹלהֵי י ִ ְצחָק‬
My name forever, this My appellation for all ‫שמִי‬ ְּׁ ‫ש ָל ַחנִי ֲאלֵיכֶם זֶה‬
ְׁ ‫וֵאֹלהֵי יַעֲק ֹב‬
eternity.” .‫לְעֹלָם ְוזֶה זִכ ְִרי לְד ֹר ד ֹּר‬

Nevertheless, this interpretation does not reflect the original meaning of YHWH.
The word “he is” would not be written with a vav as its third letter, but with a yod,
as ‫יהיה‬, just as the word “I am” is ‫אהיה‬. Second, note how awkwardly the verses
read, trying to force the meaningehyeh on the word YHWH, by having God first
tell Moses to use the name Ehyeh, and then to use the name YHWH, without
explaining the switch.[4] Thus, I would argue that the explanation here is a popular
etymology, and we need to look elsewhere for the etymology of this name.

Moses’ Midianite Backstory

The first clue to understanding the name comes from the context of the story of
the burning bush in the book of Exodus. After Moses kills an Egyptian and flees
from Pharaoh (2:12-15), he ends up in Midian, where he meets the priest of
Midian, Reuel (or Jethro), and marries his daughter, Zipporah (2:15-22). While
shepherding his father-in-law’s flocks, he sees the burning bush and receives a
revelation from God at God’s own mountain:

Exod 3:1
 Moses was tending the flock of his father-
in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he drove ‫ּומֹשֶׁה ָהי ָה רֹעֶה אֶת צ ֹאן יִתְ רֹו‬ ‫א‬:‫שמות ג‬
the flock into the wilderness, and came to the ‫ח ֹתְ נֹו כֹּהֵן מִדְ י ָן ַויִּנְהַג אֶת הַצ ֹּאן ַאחַר‬
mountain of God, to Horeb. .‫אֶ ל הַר הָאֱ ֹלהִיםח ֵֹרבָה‬ ‫ַהמִּדְ בָּר ַוי ָּב ֹא‬
This context suggests that God’s mountain is not in Israel or in Egypt, but it is in
the Horeb wilderness, not far from Midian. Where is Midian and what do we
know about it historically?

Midian and the Qurayyah Culture of North Arabia

Assuming the area described by Ptolemy as Midiana is the same area as biblical
Midian, an assumption that can be supported by the biblical connection between
Midian and Ishmael (see below), we can know quite a bit about its material
culture in the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages (13 th–12th cent. B.C.E.).

A group of semi-nomads, who produced a very distinct, colorful and attractive,

decorated pottery with images of ostriches or other birds, lived a little northeast
of the area Ptolemy calls Midian, in an area known as the Oasis of Qurayyah. This
pottery style is known in scholarship as Qurayyah Painted Ware (QPW).

The Qurayyah people were also experts in metallurgy, specifically the smelting of
copper and the production of bronze. The area of Qurayyah itself has no copper
veins, but such veins are found further south in the Arabian Peninsula, and the
copper ore was sent north to Qurayyah for smelting because the people of
Qurayyah (Midianites) were experts in metal work.[5]

Evidence of this culture’s fingerprints is also found in other areas of copper

smelting in this period, specifically the sites of Faynan and Timna in the southern
Levant (in modern day Jordan and Israel respectively). [6] Uzi Avner, an
archaeologist working at the Dead-Sea and Arava Science Center, has argued that
the Midianites were brought in as specialists or contractors, working with the
local nomadic (Shasu) tribes or with Egyptians, who had a presence in this area
during this period, producing pure copper from ore for their customers (or
employers).[7]

An Arabian Tribe
The Midianites were a Proto-Arabian tribe;[8] their home base was in Arabia and
they are related to Ishmaelites. The book of Judges states this explicitly in the
story of Gideon, who makes the following request of the Israelites after defeating
the Midianites:

Judg 8:24
 And Gideon said to them, “I have a request
to make of you: Each of you give me the earring ‫ש ֲאלָה‬ ְׁ ‫וַי ֹּאמֶר ֲא ֵלהֶם גִּדְ עֹון ֶא‬ ‫כד‬:‫שופטים ח‬
he received as booty.” (They had golden ‫שלָלֹו כִּי‬ ְׁ ‫ש ֵאלָה ּותְ נּו לִי אִיׁש נֶזֶם‬ ְׁ ‫ִמכֶּם‬
:‫ח‬ 
earrings, for they were .‫כִּי יִשְׁ ְמעֵאלִים הֵם‬ ‫נִזְמֵי זָהָב ָלהֶם‬
Ishmaelites.) 8:25 “Certainly!” they replied. And ‫וַי ֹּאמְרּו נָתֹון נִתֵּן ַויִּפ ְְרׂשּו אֶת‬ ‫כה‬
they spread out a cloth, and everyone threw onto ‫שמָּה אִיׁש נֶזֶם‬ ָׁ ‫שלִיכּו‬ ְׁ ַּ ‫ש ְמלָה ַוי‬ ִּׂ ‫ַה‬
it the earring he had received as booty. .‫שלָלֹו‬ ְׁ
8:26
 The weight of the golden earrings that he had ‫שקַל נִזְ ֵמי ַהזָּהָב ֲאשֶׁר שָָׁאל‬ ְׁ ִ‫ ַויְהִי מ‬ ‫כו‬:‫ח‬
requested came to 1700 shekels of gold; this was ‫שבַע ֵמאֹות זָהָב ְלבַד מִן‬ ְׁ ‫ֶאלֶף ּו‬
in addition to the crescents and the pendants and ‫ַָאר ָּגמָן‬
ְ ‫שהֲרֹנִים ְו ַהנְּטִפֹות ּו ִבגְדֵ י ה‬ ַּׂ ‫ַה‬
the purple robes worn by the kings of Midian and ‫שעַל מַ ְלכֵי מִדְ י ָן ּו ְלבַד מִן ָה ֲענָקֹות‬ ֶׁ
in addition to the collars on the necks of their ‫ ַויַּעַׂש אֹותֹו‬ ‫כז‬:‫ח‬ .‫ ְג ַמלֵּיהֶם‬ ‫ְּארי‬
ֵ ‫ֲאשֶׁר ְּב ַצו‬
camels. 8:27 Gideon made an ephod of this gold…  …‫גִדְ עֹון ְלאֵפֹוד‬
We see evidence of the connection between Midianites and Ishmaelites as well
when it comes to names. For instance, Moses’ father-in-law Jethro or Jether
(Exod 4:17) has the same name as David’s brother-in-law (husband of David’s
sister Abigail), Jether the Ishmaelite (1 Chron 2:17). 

The Spice Trade

During the Iron Age and afterwards, the Midianites, as an Arabian tribe, were
part of the spice trade. They would travel from Arabia and pass through Israel on
their way to the Mediterranean coast and/or Egypt. This is reflected in the biblical
story of Joseph, which describes Midianite and Ishmaelite traders heading to
Egypt with spices and slaves:

Gen 37:25
 …Looking up, they (=Joseph’s
brothers) saw a caravan of Ishmaelites
coming from Gilead, their camels bearing ‫… ַויִּשְׂאּו עֵינֵיהֶם ַוי ְִּראּו ְו ִהנֵּה‬ ‫כה‬:‫בראשית לז‬
gum, balm, and ladanum to be taken to ‫ש ְמעֵאלִים בָָּאה ִמ ִּג ְלעָד ּוגְ ַמלֵּיהֶם‬ ְׁ ִ ‫א ְֹרחַת י‬
Egypt…. 37:28 When Midianite traders passed ‫ְהֹוריד‬
ִ ‫שאִים נְכ ֹאת ּוצ ְִרי וָֹלט הֹו ְלכִים ל‬ ְׂ ֹ ‫נ‬
‫כח‬:‫לז‬
by, they pulled Joseph up out of the pit. ‫שים מִדְ יָנִים‬ ִׁ ָ‫ ַוי ַּ ַעבְרּו ֲאנ‬   …‫ִמצ ְָריְמָה‬
They sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver ‫סֹח ֲִרים ַוי ִּ ְמשְׁכּו ַויַּעֲלּו אֶת יֹוסֵף מִן הַּבֹור‬
to the Ishmaelites, who brought Joseph to ‫ש ְמעֵאלִים ְּב ֶעש ְִׂרים ָּכסֶף‬ ְׁ ִּ ‫ַוי ִּ ְמכְּרּו אֶת יֹוסֵף ַלי‬
Egypt.[9] .‫ַויָּבִיאּו אֶת יֹוסֵף ִמצ ְָריְמָה‬

In this story, the traders had first headed north, perhaps to trade with the
Arameans, and were moving south through the Jezreel valley to the Via Maris,
which would take them into Egypt. Although the story is set in the second
millennium B.C.E., anachronistic features such as camels show that it was written
in the first millennium B.C.E.

The strong connection between these eastern Arabian tribes and the spice route is
reflected in the name the Bible (Gen 25:1-2) gives their eponymous mother,
Qeturah (‫)קטורה‬, a name related to the Hebrew word for incense, qetoret (‫)קטורת‬.

In short, the Midianites were an Arabian tribe involved in metallurgy and the
spice trade, whose base was in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula, but whose
reach of settlement was much wider, with pockets living in the southwest Sinai
Peninsula, the southern Transjordan, and the Aravah (the desert area of the
southeastern Negev), probably because of the copper veins there.  

The Shaswe-Land YHWA

Based on Egyptian records dating to the 14 th century B.C.E., we know that the
Midianites were not the only ethnic groups living this these areas. [10] In the
geographical list in Amunhotep III’s Soleb Nubian temple, the people of the
Aravah and the southern Transjordan are called Shaswe (or Shasu), a generic
term meaning something like “nomadic tribes.”

The word shaswe, šꜣsw ( )[11] is written after the Egyptian determinative for

“land” tꜣ ( ), showing that the Egyptian text is describing different
geographical areas inhabited by various shaswe. One area listed is called Nomad-
land Seir, which is identical with the Mount Seir region in Edom. The following
name in the list, and thus nearby or contiguous with Seir, was Nomad-land
Yehwa, yhwꜣ(w) ( ).[12] The pronunciation of this name is uncertain, since like
Hebrew, hieroglyphics do not include vowels, but the term seems to be related to
the name of the Israelite deity, YHWH, whose precise ancient pronunciation is
also unknown.  

A Deity and a Land

In the list, Yehwa is the name of a land. Just as one nomadic group lived in a land
called Seir, another lived in a land called Yehwa. But in antiquity, a name could
sometimes be both a toponym and a theonym. The name Assyria (Aššur)
illustrates this clearly: it is both the name of Assyria’s chief deity and of their
ancient capital city. Eventually, it also became the name of their empire. Another
example would be the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena, who began as the patron
goddess of Athens.[13]

YHWH Comes from the Edomite South

Biblical evidence suggests that YHWH comes from the southeast, either from the
hills of Edom or even further south in Midian or beyond. This is particularly clear
in three very ancient biblical poems:

‫הוָה ִמסִּינַי בָּא ְוז ַָרח‬-ְ‫י‬ YHWH came from Sinai; He shone
‫שעִיר לָמֹו הֹופִי ַע ֵמהַר‬ ֵּׂ ‫ִמ‬ upon them from Seir; He appeared
Song of Moses ‫ָּארן וְָאתָ ה מ ִֵרבְב ֹת‬
ָ ‫פ‬ from Mount Paran, and approached
(Deut 33:2) …‫ק ֹדֶ ׁש‬ from Ribeboth-kodesh…
‫שעִיר‬
ֵּׂ ‫הוָה ְּבצֵאתְ ָך ִמ‬-ְ‫י‬ YHWH, when You came forth from
Song of Deborah ‫ְּב ַצעְדְּ ָך ִמשְּׂדֵ ה אֱדֹום‬ Seir, advanced from the country of
(Judg 5:4) …‫א ֶֶרץ ָר ָעשָׁה‬ Edom, the earth trembled…
Song of ‫אֱלֹו ַה מִתֵּ ימָן י ָבֹוא‬
Habakkuk (Hab ‫ָּארן‬
ָ ‫ְוקָדֹוׁש מֵ הַר פ‬ God is coming from Teman, the Holy
3:3) …‫ֶסלָה‬ One from Mount Paran. Selah….

Each of these poems opens with the image of YHWH coming from his home in
the south. In fact, Habakkuk’s song (v. 7) even goes on to describe how the tents
of the Midianites (‫ )י ְִריעֹות א ֶֶרץ מִדְ י ָן‬shake as YHWH stomps on the ground near
them on his way to his people.

God’s Mountain
This conception fits with what the story of Moses and the burning bush, where
Moses goes to the Mountain of God while tending the flocks of his Midianite
father-in-law. Moses is wandering in Midianite territory, though not in Arabia but
in the vicinity of modern-day Petra, biblical Kadesh (Reqem in Aramaic), where
we have evidence of a Qurrayah-culture group living not far from Edom.

An Arabic Name
If YHWH’s origins are in the Nomad-land of Yehwa among the Midianites, then
the meaning of the name should be from the Arabic language family rather than
the Hebrew language family. This further calls into question the etymology in
Exodus 3 of the Tetragrammaton from ‫י‬.‫ו‬.‫ה‬, “to be,” since, unlike Hebrew and
Aramaic, Proto-Arabic does not have the root ‫י‬.‫ו‬.‫ ה‬for the word “to be.”[15]
 The Jealous God
In 1956, Shelomo Dov Goitein (1900-1985), a scholar of both Jewish and Arabic
studies,[16]suggested that the name derives from the Arabic root h.w.y (‫)هوى‬, and
the word hawaya(‫)هوايا‬, which means “love, affection, passion, desire.”[17] He
connected this suggestion with the passage in Exodus 34, in a set of laws known
by scholars as the Ritual Decalogue. One of the laws, which forbids Israel to
worship other gods, reads:

Exod 34:14
 For you must not worship any other god, ‫כִּי ֹלא תִ שְׁתַּ ֲחוֶה ְלאֵל‬ ‫יד‬:‫שמות לד‬
because YHWH, whose name is Impassioned, is an ‫הוָה ַקנָּא שְׁמֹו אֵל‬-ְ‫ַאחֵר כִּי י‬
impassioned God. .‫ַקנָּא הּוא‬

Goitein suggests that “YHWH whose name is Impassioned” refers to the deity’s
personal name YHWH, which means “the Impassioned One,” and that this name
derives from that (proto)Arabic term for passion.  This reflects the idea that
YHWH’s bond with his worshipers is one of passionate love, and YHWH is upset
if the worshipers “cheat” by worshipping other gods.

In other words, the worshippers’ relationship with YHWH must be exclusive.

Moreover, according to Goitein, this exclusivity demanded by YHWH goes back to
his appearance as a god among nomadic, Arabian tribes.

Monolatry
Scholars call such exclusive worship of one god “monolatry.” While monotheism
claims that no other gods exist, monolatry assumes loyalty and exclusive
connection to one god, while allowing for the existence of other deities. In fact,
many biblical passages that we read nowadays as monotheistic are really
monolatrous. A classic example is in the Decalogue itself:

Deut 5:7 
You shall have no other gods besides ‫ֹלא י ִ ְהי ֶה לְָך אֱֹלהִים ֲאח ִֵרים עַל‬ ‫ט‬-‫ז‬:‫דברים ה‬
Me… 5:9You shall not bow down to them or ְׁ ִ‫ֹלא ת‬ ‫ט‬:‫ה‬ …ַ ‫ָּפנָי‬
‫שתַּ ְחוֶה ָלהֶם וְֹלא‬
serve them. For I YHWH your God am an ‫הוָה אֱֹלהֶיָך אֵל‬-ְ‫תָ ָעבְדֵ ם כִּי ָאנֹכִי י‬
impassioned God…. .…‫ַקנָּא‬

The text does not say that no other gods exist, only that they should not be
worshipped in addition to YHWH, because YHWH is an impassioned God who
would naturally become jealous and agitated at such behavior. YHWH’s
relationship with his followers is like that of a husband to a wife; he loves his
worshipers but is dangerously jealous of any “worshipping around.” As the book
of Proverbs states about husbands:

Prov 6:34
 The fury of the husband will be passionate; He ‫כִּי ִקנְָאה ֲחמַת ָּגבֶר‬ ‫לד‬:‫משלי ו‬
will show no pity on his day of vengeance. .‫וְֹלא יַחְמֹול בְּיֹום נָקָם‬

YHWH is just such an impassioned husband to his espoused people and just as
vengeful if his people are disloyal.

Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm also characterized the Qurayyah culture (Midianites), as seen from
the excavations at Timna. The Egyptians built a small temple to the goddess
Hathor in Timna, which was excavated by Tel Aviv University and University of
London archaeologist, Beno Rothenberg (1914-2012). At the same time, the
Midianites had their own worship place there, characterized by a collection of
pillars (‫ )מצבות‬in a tent. (Because of the extreme aridity of the area, pieces of the
tent survived and were discovered by the excavators.)

Unlike the Egyptian Hathor Temple, the Midianite worship area had no images,
whether painted or carved, reflecting their aniconism. When the Egyptians left
this area, the Midianites took control of the entire area including the Hathor
Temple. In so doing, they made the area religiously acceptable by erasing
Hathor’s face from the rock paintings, and reused these rocks in their own area as
another pillar. Rothenberg’s argument of  was reconfirmed by the recent
excavation by Uzi Avner.[20] This iconoclasm is also reflected in another related
group, the Kenites (see appendix). 

Authentic Tradition about YHWH, Midian, and Moses

The tradition about Moses’ marriage to a Midianite woman has the mark of
authenticity: Why would the Israelites invent a story about their primary religious
leader’s marriage to a non-Israelite woman? 

More problematically, Moses not only finds his wife among the Midianites, but
finds his God there as well. As I have argued in other contexts, such as my TABS
article, “Hovav the Midianite: Why Was the End of the Story Cut?,” the biblical
texts try to soften or even hide this, but the full force of the Moses-in-Midian
tradition is one that explains the emergence of the Midianite/proto-Arabian god
YHWH—a passionate deity expecting exclusive love—as Israel’s god.

___________________

Appendix

Aniconic Kenites: Another Midianite-like Yahwistic Tribe

One further piece of evidence for Midianite aniconism comes from the Kenites.
The relationship between Midianites and Kenites is unclear, but the biblical text
sometimes conflates the two, since Moses’ father-in-law is sometimes described
as having been one, and sometimes the other. [21]

In Judges 1:16, we are told that the Kenites settled in the Arad Valley, and
scholars have long suggested that the city of Horvat Uza is biblical Kina, since the
stream in its vicinity is called Wadi-el-Keni, i.e., the Kenite Stream. Excavations
of the Iron II (monarchic period) city there show that whereas the neighboring
(Israelite!) towns had small carvings of people, Horvat Uza had none. Nadav
Na’aman, a historian of the biblical period from Tel Aviv University, suggested
that this was because the Kenites were especially connected to their ancient,
aniconic tradition.[22]
Similarly, one Kenite figure from a later period, Jehonadab ben Rechab (1 Chron
2:55),[23] is described as having joined Jehu’s anti-Baal movement (2 Kgs 10:15-
16). In Jeremiah we hear that this group—the Rechabites, a Kenite subclan—lived
a nomadic tent-dwelling life, without building houses or planting fields, and
eschewed wine consumption. This lifestyle is reminiscent of what we see in later
times with yet another Arabic tribe, the Nabateans, who were also aniconic. [24]

Even if the exact relationship between Midianites, Kenites, and Rechabites

remains hazy—except that the latter two small groups became part of Israel and
the former large group did not—all of these groups were part of an aniconic,
YHWH worshipping tradition, which was adopted and reshaped by the Israelites
in an early period.

___________________

  Prof. Israel Knohl is the Yehezkel Kaufmann Professor of Bible at

the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He holds a Ph.D. in Bible from this
same institution. Prof. Knohl served as a visiting professor at University of
California at Berkeley, Stanford University, the University of Chicago Divinity
School, and Harvard University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the
Shalom Hartman Institute.  His numerous publications include: The Sanctuary of
Silence (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1994), which won the Z. Shkopp Prize for
Biblical Studies;The Messiah before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea
Scrolls (University of California Press, 2000), which was published in eight
languages; and The Divine Symphony: The Bible’s Many Voices (JPS, 2003).

01/01/2019

[1] This article is based on ch.8 of my,  ‫איך נולד התנ”ך‬ [How the Bible Was Born]
(Israel: Kinneret, Zmora-bitan, Dvir, 2018).

[2] Source critically, the revelation of God’s name in ch. 3 was part of the E or
Elohistic source, whereas the revelation in chapter 6 is, in my view, from the
Holiness School’s redaction of the Pentateuch. See Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of
Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School, trans. Jackie Feldman and
Peretz Rodman (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007; repr. of, Minneapolis,
MN; Fortress Press, 1995), 17 [n24]; trans. of,  ‫מקדש הדממה עיון ברובדי היצירה הכוהנית‬
‫שבתורה‬ (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992). Other scholars, however, believe it to be
from the Priestly text (see discussion in, David Frankel, “Reconstructing the Priestly
Moses,” TheTorah.com [2015].) Editor’s note: For how these two texts played an
important role in the development of source criticism, see Zev Farber, “How God’s
Revelation of the Name YHWH Continues to Enlighten,” TheTorah.com (2014).

[3] Editor’s note: For more on how this meaning was understood over time, see
James Diamond, “YHWH: The God that Is vs. the God that
Becomes,” TheTorah.com (2017).
[4] Editor’s note: For a claim that this gloss is actually a redactional supplement,
added after the E and J sources were combined, see, Zev Farber, “How Does God
Answer the Question: ‘What Is Your Name?’”   TheTorah.com (2017).

[5] The related group Kenites (see appendix) counts the founder of metallurgy
among its ancestors (Gen 4:22).

[6] Editor’s note: For more on Timna, see Erez Ben-Yosef and Aaron
Greener, “Edom’s Copper Mines in Timna: Their Significance in the 10th
Century,” TheTorah.com (2018).

[7] Uzi Avner, “Egyptian Timna – Reconsidered,” in Understanding the

Wilderness, ed. J. M. Tabes (Louvain 2014), 103-162.

[8] The term “Arab” here may be anachronistic, as the first time we see this term
used is in 8th century Assyrian documents. The point is that the Midianites are
from the same area as the Arabian tribes and were likely part of this Arab or
proto-Arab group.

[9] Editor’s note: For a source critical explanation for why both Midianites and
Ishmaelites appear in this story as the ones who bring Joseph to Egypt, see, Ben
Sandler, “Encountering the Documentary Hypothesis in the Joseph
Story,” TheTorah.com (2014).

[10] I discuss some of this briefly in my piece on Hovav, in the context of why the
Torah cuts off the end of the story in Numbers 10. See my, “Hovav the Midianite:
Why Was the End of the Story Cut?” TheTorah.com (2016).

[11] The final w is a phonetic complement, i.e., it is not pronounced but is written
to clarify the pronunciation of the previous biliteral sign (i.e., a sign that
represents two consonants), which is why it is transcribed with only one w. The
first vowel “a” is a common rendering for the vowel preceding an aleph; the final
vowel “e” is just a convention of Egyptologists; hieroglyphics were written without
vowels and we do not know how the end of the word was pronounced.

[12] Editor’s note: The second “w” is problematic. Unlike in the word shaswe, it
cannot be a phonetic complement since phonetic complements are paired to the
second consonant of a biliteral sign, or to both consonants, but not to just the
first. In theory it could be another consonant yielding Yehwaw. It could also be a
redundant consonant (as sometimes occurs in toponyms) or an attempt by the
scribe to mimic a vowel sound from a foreign language, such as the diphthong aʊ.
An attractive possibility, suggested by the Egyptologist Elmar Edel (1914-1997), is
that the “w” quail chick ( ) is a scribal error, and what should have been written
is the “aleph” vulture ( ), which is how the word is spelled in Rameses II’s
Amara West inscription, which also references Nomad-land Yehwa. If so, then the
final consonant is just a phonetic complement, and the proper transcription
would be yhwꜣ. See discussion in, Faried Adrom and Matthias Müller, “The
Tetragrammaton in Egyptian Sources – Facts and Fiction,” in The Origins of
Yahwism, ed. Jürgen van Oorschot and Markus Witte, BZAW 484 (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2017), 93-114 [98, n36].  
[13] Her fuller name, Pallas Athena, originally meaning “Pallas of Athens.” See,
Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985),
139.

[14] Editor’s note: See discussion of this identification in David Ben-Gad

HaCohen, “Locating Beer-lahai-roi,” TheTorah.com (2014); ibid., “Solving the
Problem of Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran,” TheTorah.com (2015).

[15] Later Arabic does have such a root (in addition to the one we will discuss
presently), but with the meaning “to drop, fall, or tumble” not “to be.”   

[16] Goitein is best-known for his 6-volume work, A Mediterranean Society: The
Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the
Cairo Geniza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967–1993). Before
teaching at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and then at Princeton, he wrote
on the Bible and was even in charge of Bible education in mandatory Palestine.

[17] Shelomo Dov Goitein, “YHWH the Passionate: The Monotheistic Meaning
and Origin of the Name YHWH,” Vetus Testamentum 6.1 (1956): 1-9.

[18] See my, “The Rise, Decline and Renewal of Biblical Religion,” OBO 283
(2017): 167-180.

[19] Amnon Ben-Tor, “The Sad Fate of Statues of Hazor,” in Confronting the Past:
Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever,
ed. Seymour Gitin, George E. Wright, and J.P. Desel, (Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2006), 3–16. For more on this conquest, see Amnon Ben Tor, “The
Fall of Canaanite Hazor:  The “Who” and “When” Questions,” in Mediterranean
Peoples in Transition: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries BCE, in Honor of Professor
Trude Dothan, ed. Seymour Gitin, Amihai Mazar, and Ephraim Stern (Jerusalem:
Israel Exploration Society, 1998), 456-467; ibid., “Who Destroyed Canaanite
Hazor?” BAR 39.4 (2013): 27-36.

[20] Avner, “Egyptian Timna – Reconsidered.”

[21] Editor’s note: For one discussion of this, see Zev Farber,  “Moses’ Father-in-
Law: Kenite or Midianite?” TheTorah.com (2015).

[22] Nadav Na’aman, “The Kenite Hypotheses in Light of the Excavations at

Horvat Uzza,” inNot Only History: Proceedings of the Conference in Honor of Mario
Liverani ed. Gilda Bartolini and Maria G. Briga (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,
2016), 171-182.

[23] For a discussion of this verse, and how it connects Jehonadab ben Rechab to

the Kenites, see, Shemaryahu Talmon, “‫[ ”המה הקינים הבאים מחמת אבי בית רכב‬These are
the Kenites who Come from the Father of the House of Rechab], Eretz Israel 5
(5719): 111-113.

[24] See discussion in, Joseph Patrich, The Formation of Nabatean Art: Prohibition
of a Graven Image (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1997).