TWO CONTRIBUTIONS TO CANAANITE TOPONYMY

Author(s): A. M. Honeyman
Source: The Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. 50, No. 197/198 (January/April 1949), pp.
50-52
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23954117
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 NOTES AND STUDIES

TWO CONTRIBUTIONS TO CANAANITE TOPONYMY

I.I. ELTEQE', ELTEQEH, AND ELTEQON

‫לא‬1‫נן‬.‫ אק‬Joshua xxi. 23 and ‫ הקתלא‬Joshua xix. 44 are orthographic
variations of the same name, which refers to an inhabited locality
situated in the former territory of the tribe of Dan and identified1
with Khirbet Mukenna'.
The Masoretic vocalizations are late and artificial; the older pro
nunciation is indicated by the cuneiform spelling al-ta-qu-u2 and by
the transliterations of LXX414® eXdeKio in both passages3 and of the
Vulgate eltheco in Joshua xxi. 23. In form the names are of the ifte'al
type and parallel to ‫ עומתשא‬and ‫לואתשא‬, which have long been
recognized as names of oracle-sites, meaning '(place of) hearingr
[i.e. place of invocation] and '(place of) decision'4 respectively. The
etymology and meaning are not dissimilar; the root is Iqy 'meet,
encounter',5 as in Arabic I and VI 'meet, find', III 'encounter
face to face', IV 'inspire', and Elteqe(h) '(the place of) meeting (the
deity) '6 must have taken its name from theophanies associated with
the locality.
‫ ןקתלא‬Joshua xv. 59, transliterated by the Vulgate as eltecon and
in the Leyden Papyrus (S. XIII B.C.) as 'rtqnf probably to be vocalized
'irataquna,'irataquna, and located in the territory of Judah, has the same origin
and meaning.7 The termination is the Canaanite substantival -an > ]1'
found in place-names such as ]8.‫ןולקשא‬, ‫ יליא‬The fact that all the
1 Albright in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 15,
1924-5, 8.
2 Sanherib Prism Inscription II, 76, 82 = Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Biblio
thek,thek, ii, 1890, 92 et seq.
3 For subsidiary witnesses vide Brooke-McLean ad locc.
‫ י‬Cf. Albright in American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures,
xxxiv, 1918, 209-10; Gordis in Jewish Quarterly Review, xxvii, 1936, 45.
s Margoliouth, in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, iii (1900), 30 n., connects
the name with this root, but Burney in J.T.S., xiii (1912), 84, rightly rejects
the meaning attributed by Margoliouth to the word. Burney's own account
assumes for Canaanite a consonant-change known only from Accadian
(Brockelmann, Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik der Semitischen
Sprachen,Sprachen, i, 1908, § 85 e a).
6 Cf. Gen. xxxii. 31, Exod. xxxiii. 11, Deut. xxxiv. 10, Judges vi. 22.
‫ י‬On the other hand the Ugaritian personal name il-taq-nu, which de Langhe,
Les Les Textes de Ras Shamra-Ugarit et leurs rapports avec le milieu biblique de
l'ancien l'ancien testament, ii, 1945, 260 compares with ‫ ןקתלא‬is probably from the
root ‫' ןקת‬be straight', intensive 'direct', and so means 'El directs' or 'El is
uprightness uprightness '.
8 Bauer-Leander, Historische Grammatik der Hebràischen Sprache, i, 1922,
§ 61 q 0.

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 NOTES AND STUDIES 5 I
Biblical place-names of the ifte'âl type occur wit
small area is not significant, for this inflection w
of the older Canaanite dialects1 and a similar p
the Ras Shamra texts.* But it is a fair inference
of the pre-Israelite Canaanites of central Palestine
tance attached to theophanic and oracle-giving si
II.II. ' TALPIOTH '

This place-name is a ' ghost ‫ י‬which owes its existence to the trans
literation by the LXX in the Song of Sol. iv. 4 of a word they did
not understand.3 The ancient versions not directly dependent on the
LXX translate : Aquila els ëwdA^eiç (v. 1. iirâvw èiraXtjéaiv) ; Symmachus
els els vifir] (v. 1. els vifios)', Quinta els ivroXas; Vulgate cum propugnaculis ;
Peshitto • Of these renderings those of Aquila, of Symmachus,
and of Jerome, who followed them, clearly understand ‫ תויפלתל‬to
refer to the style or purpose of the structure 'David's tower', and
this interpretation is more in accordance with Hebrew idiom than the
interpretation 'at Talpioth', for,apart from topographical difficulties,
while ‫ ל‬is used of ' place where ' only in certain idiomatic expressions
and never with nouns proper,4 it quite frequently denotes the standard,
principle, measure, or style.5 In form ‫ תויפלת‬is a plural of a feminine
of taqtilat type6 from the root Ip"1 'to arrange in courses'.8 The
sense of the phrase ‫ תויפלתל יונב‬is 'built of coursed masonry', which
is applicable to David's tower. The mention of ' the thousand shields '
also has reference to David's tower, the picture being not of the
interior stocked as an arsenal, but of the exterior appearance of the
tower; the courses of masonry with drafted margins and bosses on
the outer faces of the stones9 resembled rows of warriors' bucklers.10
1 Ugaritian, Phoenician, Moabite ; cf. Harris, Development of the Canaanite
Dialects,Dialects, 1939, 62.
22 Alphabetic UStm' = syllabic aill-is-tam-i ' (place of) the god of invocation' ;
cf. de Langbe, op. cit. ii. 40.
3 Cf. Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 1900, 324-5.
4 Cf. Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew Dictionary, s.v. 2 § ,‫( ל‬p. 511 6).
5 Cf. Brown, Driver, and Briggs, op. cit., verb, cit., § 5 i (p. 516 a-b).
6 Brockelmann, op. cit. i, § 208 c; cf. § 94 o.
' The Masoretic orthography with doubled yod is due to the assimilation
which sometimes takes place in Hebrew of an alef by a preceding long f, thus,
talpï'at">talpiyatutalpï'at">talpiyatu {>talpit ?) ; cf. Gesenius-Bergstrâsser, Hebrâische Gram
matik,matik, 1918, § 15 h, and note further the fluctuations between Qere and Ketib
in Gen. xiv. 2, Hos. xi. 8, and Ezra v. 1.
8 Cf. Aram. ‫' יפל אפל‬anreihen' (Levy), e.g. Targ. Jer. Lev. vi. 5 for ‫)ךרע‬,
Babli Yoma 33 a, af'el 'schichten' (Dalman) ; ÛJ 'peel, skin' and VU I
(Steingass).
‫ י‬Cf. Burrows, What Mean These Stones?, 1941, 131, § 92, 146, § 102.
10 The Hebrew magen, like the usual Phoenician shield, was a round targe of
leather; cf. Galling, Biblisches Real-lexikon, 1937, s.v. Schild.

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 52 THE JOURNAL OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
In comparing the young woman's neck to such an edifice the poet is
alluding to the multiple necklace with which it was adorned." The
comparison, though outré by western standards, was neither inept nor
uncommon ; it recurs in vii. 5 and there is another instance in Acts of
Thomas Thomas (ed. Bonnet), viii. 8, 9.2 The whole verse may be rendered :
Like David's tower is thy neck, laid in courses,
On which the thousand shields are hung, all the warriors' targes.
A. M. Honeyman

a note on ‫ינשה רפה‬, judges vi. 25, 26,28

Almost all commentators have noticed that in this incident in the
life of Gideon a second bullock is mentioned no less than three times
without any apparent reason. In the R.V. the passage runs : (25) ' Take
thy father's bullock, even (R.V. and ") the second bullock of seven
years old . . . (26) and take the second bullock and offer a burnt
offering . . . (28) and the second bullock was offered upon the altar
that was built.' Obviously the sense requires that there should be
two bullocks, but the first simply is not there.
The difficulty was carefully discussed by Burney3 who followed
a counsel of despair and cut out the word ‫ ינש‬from all three verses,
noting, however, that most of his predecessors following the supposed
lead of LXXAL tov /xôaxov rov oitcvtov read ‫ןמשה‬. He might have
added that the Targum has a doublet ‫ ' םטפתיאד אנינת ארותו‬the second
bull that has been fattened' in v. 25.4 Now it is incredible that a
Hebrew scribe should have made the same mistake in three verses; if
he had wanted to say that the animal was fat (‫ )ןמש‬he would not thrice
have failed to convey his intention. Therefore it seems reasonable to
infer that ‫ ינש‬must have had a meaning which the Greek translators
believed that they understood. They were right; for this is one of
a number of words which the Hebrew punctuators failed to point
properly. The word that we need is ‫ינש‬. Its existence is not recog
nized in the Hebrew lexicons but nevertheless it must be the Hebrew

equivalent of the Arabic , a word which is applied to full-grown

animals including cows and bulls;5 thus the meaning is: 'Take thy
1 Such composite necklets are referred to in iv. 9, Prov. i. 9, and illustrated
in Gressmann, Altorientalische Texte und Bilder zum Alten Testament, ii, 1927,
No. 188; cf. Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, 1894, 214, 227, 31*d especially the
illustrations opposite pp. 250, 255.
1 Tr. James, The Apocryphal New Testament, 367.
s The Book of Judges, London, 1918, p. 184 f.
4 Ed. Lagarde, Leipzig, 1872. In verses 26 and 28 Targ. conforms to the
M.T.M.T.

5 Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, i. 358 f. The Tahdhib, one of Lane's

sources, has the interesting note that the term is applied to a camel when it
reaches the age at which it may be sacrificed.

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