w. f. albright, the name rebecca, jbl 39 1920,

7/27/2019 W. F. Albright, The Name Rebecca, JBL 39 1920,

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The Name RebeccaAuthor(s): W. F. AlbrightSource: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 39, No. 3/4 (1920), pp. 165-166Published by: The Society of Biblical LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3260210 .

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BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS 165TaQdbbara,o bepatient,meansproperly o becool;Shakespearesays: Upon the heat and flame of thy distempersprinklecoolpatience. Arab. taglbbara,to wreakvengeance,corresponds othe Germanseine Rache (or sein Miltchen)kiihle (cf. Arab.1- tubarrid anhu). For the modernArab. g'bar, to wait, wemay compareour to cool the heels. Arab.basr,cold water,andtabassara= bacradaepresenttranspositionsof sabara. Arab.bdra,to search out, signifiesproperlyto sound (AJSL 23, 244,below)andbara,to perish, s originally ofall into a pit; cf.Heb.?ihh't_,to destroy, which is derivedfrom ah1t stem?.h) pit(AJSL 23, 248; JBL 35, 157, n. 2). In Assyrian,baru, to pit,is the commonexpressionfor to catch,to hunt; see mypaperonthe Sumerianoriginof our tun and barrel(MLN 33, 434).

Johns HopkinsUniversity Paul Haupt

The Name RebeccaThe etymologyof the nameRibk.d(from*Ribkat

or *Rabkat,cf.JBL, XXXVII, 117,n. 3) has longbeen regardedas obscure,as a combinationwith the phoneticallyidenticalAr. ribkahorrabkah, halter with a runningknot, noose, snare, is hard tojustify; a girlwouldhardlybe called by such an ominousnameas snare, even if she were a courtesan. Accordingly Bauer(ZDMG, LXVII, 344) has suggested that Ribka be regardedas as transpositionof bek4r~,heifer, cow,which s in the highestdegree improbable,despitethe mythologicalpossibilitieswhichare immediately ecalled (cf. JBL, XXXVII, 117). However,it may be that Bauer is on the right track;his ideas are alwaysinterestingand useful, even whenwrong.I wouldsuggest that Bibk.d

be combinedwithAssyr.rikcibtu,clod, earth, soil, fromrabcaku, ultivate, a transposeddoubletof k(k)aralbu,ultivate,plow,whenceAram. D,Ar. .j, plow,fromwhich is derived kurbdnu, kirbanu, lump of earth, andkirfbu, field, kirbitu,originallyconnectedwith Ar. garib, cul-tivatedfield,for *karib,by partialassimilation.For thesewords,whichare not intheolderglossaries, f.Walther,ZDMG, LXIX,429, and Zimmern,ZA, XXXI, 121; Walther is probably11*

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166 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATUREcorrect in combiningrikibtu (not rikibtu,as he gives)withHeb.regeb,clod, soil, for *rakb,but 'egraf= Ar. 'urf is not related,thoughfurnishingan interesting parallel development. On theother hand Heb. rak-b, Aram. rikba, mold, decay, seems torefer primarily o humus, and thus to be identicalwithrikibtu.Since the latter is presumablyderived romrabaku, t standsfor*ribiktu= Ribkd, which then means properlysoil, earth.Our philological exegesis, if correct, indicates that Rebeccais properlythe name of the earth-goddess, ike EthiopicBaherandMgder,personifications f Mother Earth who figureon theheathen Ethiopic inscriptions. The Egyptian earth-god Gbb(= Ar. qabuib, lod, soil, earth,Ember) was father of Osiris,the Hellenic (orPhrygian)Semele (= Slav.zemlya, earth, land)was motherof Dionysos,andRebeccamayhave been the motherof the old Hebrew god of fertility,Jacob, the celestial bullwhobrought the fertilizing thunder-storm. I venture to say thatthis is as far as we can go with ourmotivein the saga of Jacob,whichis of very complex origin, and, in the main,not mytho-logical in character.

Jerusalem W. F. Albright

The Assumed Hebrew Stem skt, be silentDeut. 27 9, Moses opens an address to Israel with the words

o23p' J07. The pas.k after hasket is itself a suspiciouscir-cumstance,as it often indicatesa corruptionn the text, andthefact that 1:0 is a dwra Xeydoevov should make one hesitatebefore acceptingthe word. However,its existence seems to beattested by Ar. sakata, be silent, die, properlysubside, andrecently Assyriologistshave discovereda stemsakatu,be silent(cf. now Zimmern,IMtarund Saltu, p. 34). Are these combi-nations justified? I thinknot.Ar. sakatais identicalwithSyr.h , sink,subside,give way,as is shownespeciallyby the derivativeMukt&rMaktd,ediment= Ar. 'askat (a collective from*sakt, or the like), so has a W3,whichappearsin Hebrew as 0t. A parallel stem, perhapsulti-mately the same (cf. AJSL, XXXIV, 142) is VIpW,be still,

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w. f. albright, the name rebecca, jbl 39 1920,

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