NAMES, PROPER
derived their names from the abundance of animals in their vicinity. In recent times several scholars have been inclined to seek the origin of these names in totem clans.
4, Characteristics of a place more liable to change, e.g. its size, the occupation or cultus of its inhabitants, have given rise to other names. In these cases we can only be sure that the place corresponded to what the name says about it when the name was given ; in other words, we can only be sure, in the case of all names about the date of whose origin we are uncertain, that the name was true to the place in an indefinite past.
The various compounds with Hazar or Hazor, Ir, and Kiriath indicate the character of the city at the time when these names were given, but clearly the Hazor of Jg 4 (cf. Amarna tablets, 154") had grown into something more than a Hazor, i.e. a fixed settlement as contrasted with the mere encampments of nomads, but also as contrasted with the walled cities. Again, the various Gaths appear to have derived their names from the existence in them of a wine-press: Rabbah from its large, Zoar from its small size ; En-mishpat from having been a place for settling disputes.
5. But most important of the names due to characteristics liable to change are those referrin to religious belief and practice. Thus sever: names of places preserve the names of various deities that were at some time worshipped in Canaan. Thus sun-worship has left its mark on Beth-shemesh (‘temple or house of the sun’), En- shemesh (‘spring of the sun’), The ascent of Heres (i.e. ‘the sun’), Timnath-heres (‘portion of the sun’); moon-worship, according to some, on Jericho (in, ‘ny, ef. n2;=‘moon’) and Lebanon (125, cf. m3b=‘moon’*). We can trace the worship of Babylonian deities not only in the Sinaitic peninsula where Sin and Sinai record the worship of the Babylon moon-god Sin, but also in the land of Israel and its immediate prox- imity. Nebo, the name of a Babylonian deity, is also the name of a town (Nu 32%) and a mountain (Dt 32%) of Moab, and of a town of Judah (Ezr 2”) 5 the worship of Anath, the female double of Anu, is reflected in Beth-anath, Beth-anoth, and Anathoth ; the name of the Babylonian Bel is, perhaps, to be found in δαὶ (Academy, June 27, 1896) and ᾿Αρβηλά (=Heb. ab2r in Nu 34"; Academy, July 4, 1896). The name of the goddess Ashtoreth appears in Ashteroth-karnaim and Be-eshterah; of the foe Dagon in Beth-dagon. An old divine name (familiar in Arabic) is perhaps to be found in Kishon and Elkosh (ZATW, 1897, p. 349).
A large number of names of places refer_to_the worship of a god by a general title, especially Baal or El, e.g. Baal-meon, Baal-hazor, Penuel, Jezreel. A peculiar feature of the compounds with Baal is that they are not as they stand properly names of places at all, but titles of deities (‘owner of the township Meon,’ ‘owner of the palm-tree’). They have arisen by abbreviation, their original form having been Beth-baal-meon (which also actuall occurs Jos 137, Mesha Inser. 1. 30), Beth-baal- tamar, etc. In some cases, however, Baal was omitted and Beth retained, and thus we find Beth- meon (Jer 4853), It is quite possible, therefore, that some of the numerous compounds with Beth which are not new of manifestly religious import were so originally. Names of the ἴγρθ Jezreel, Jabneel are Sane to be translated ‘Let El sow, build,’ El being the genius of the place.
II. PERSONAL NAMES.—l. Personal names are either simple or compound. The latter in Hebrew generally consist of two, and only in a very few
* But a more probable etymology of Lebanon has been sug- gested above, §L 2
NAMES, PROPER
(probably late) names of three elements. The greater number of the compound personal names —and in this respect these differ from place names —are sentences, i.e. they make some statement or express some wish, generally of a religious char- acter. The simple names, many of which are very obscure, and also the compound names which are not sentences, generally refer directly or meta- phorically to some personal feature or circumstance attending the birth. Some Erpesestly simple names appear to have arisen by abbreviation from compound names, 6.5. Nathan (from Elnathan or Nathanel), Shama (=‘he heard,’ from Llishama= ‘God heard’). The explanations of names found in the OT (e.g. Gn 3” 455 5” 164 32%, Jg 6°, 1S 1”, 1 Ch 4°) do not generally coincide with their true chymase meaning, but arise from some simi- larity of sound to a word that gave what appeared subsequently a suitable significance to a man’s name. Thus Noah (ni) cannot be derived from the root beginning with a similar sound which is used in the explanation of it (won Gn 5”). The value of these narratives lies chiefly in the evidence they afford as to the kind of idea which names were generally selected to express. Thus the explana- tion of Hsau (Gn 25%) indicates that the personal features of the child, of Jacob (Gn 25**) that the circumstances of the birth, of Jchabod (1S 43) that the state of public affairs at the time of the birth, might suggest the choice of a child’s name. 2. In classifying the personal names into their chief groups, it be convenient to follow as far as possible at the same time a chronological order. As we have seen, simple Israelitish names are comparatively more frequent in earlier than in later times. Their origin, too, for the most part goes back to the ean period. Most of the appar- ently simple names that can be first traced in later periods are really abbreviated compound names. A. SIMPLE NAMES.—Of 28 names recorded in Jg 2°-16, six or eight only are compound, the rest are simple. Several, though apparently personal, were perhaps really clan names. In 2S 9-20 (time of David) the compounds number 22, the simple names 23. On the other hand, among the names of Jeremiah’s contemporaries (3-4 centuries later than David) the compound are several times as numerous as the simple names. Among the simple names of the time of the Judges and David we find the following :—(a) Several names of animals—Deborah (‘bee’), Gaal (probabl *beetle’), Zola (‘worm’), Caleb (‘dog’), Nahas (‘serpent’). Names of this class very rarely appear in the later periods, except that at the time of Josiah we find four (Hu/dah=‘ the weasel,’ Achbor =‘the mouse,’ and Shaphan (2 persons)=‘ the rock badger’); all of these are names of unclean animals, and may be due to a recrudescence of ancient superstitious practices of which we certainly find traces somewhat later; cf. Is 667 (sacrificial eating of the mouse). In any case strictly personal names of this class are not numerous as compared with the clan and place names, and some of them may be indirectly derivative from a totem stage of society. Otherwise we may explain these personal names as the attempt to express metaphorically some characteristic of the child, or the ee that as it grew up it would possess the characteristic of theanimal. This would without much difficult: account for Deborah (‘bee’), Zibiah (" gazelle,’ ct. the comparison Ca 2° 4°), but not very obviously for some others. For names of this type among other Semitic Soret ef. (for the Arabs) Hammer- Purgstall, Ueber die Namen der Araber, pp. 3, 4. (Ὁ) Names of trees.—Tamar (‘the valid); the name of two women ; cf. the comparison in Ca . Similar comparisons are to be found in Arabic poetry. lah (2K 15”, 1 Καὶ 1*) and Zlon (‘the