Introduction to the Language and Its Background
Historical and Ethno-Linguistic Background
Following Nabopolassar’s and Nebuchadnezzar II’s western campaigns, major Levantine cities – Jerusalem, Tyre, and Ashkelon, among others – surrendered to Babylonia’s sovereignty. The Babylonian kings forcibly took rebellious local rulers and citizens in exile to Babylonia. As a result, a significant number of Hebrew and other (North)west Semitic anthroponyms and toponyms start to appear in the Babylonian records of the long sixth century, as well as a small number of Philistine names.
There is some evidence for the presence of a Judean person (or was he Israelite?) in Babylonia already in the late seventh century BCE, before Nebuchadnezzar II’s deportations. The man’s name is rendered Igir-re-e-ma in cuneiform, which Reference ZadokRan Zadok (1979, 8, 34) identifies as a Yahwistic name containing the West Semitic noun gīr and therefore meaning ‘Client of Y’, but Tero Alstola raises some problems with such an identification (Reference Alstola2020, 230, n. 1164). There are no other attestations of Yahwistic names in Babylonian records from pre-exilic times.
Not all bearers of Yahwistic or Hebrew names in Babylonia necessarily arrived from Judah with Jehoiachin in 597 BCE or with the great deportations of 587 BCE. Some may have come from Israel, either directly in the late eighth century BCE, or via Assyria after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire a century later. Indeed, in principle at least, it is possible that the Assyrians deported some people from the territory of the former kingdom of Israel to Babylonia (732–701 BCE). Moreover, there is indirect evidence that descendants of Israelite deportees, who had settled in Assyria (especially in the Lower Ḫabur area), migrated from there to Babylonia after the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The above-mentioned Gīr-Yāma as well as the members of the family of Yašeˁ-Yāma (Iia-še-ˀ-ia-a-ma, Isaiah), who lived in Sippar (531/0 BCE), were probably such migrating Israelites (Reference Zadok, Gabbay and SecundaZadok 2014, 110–11).
The Babylonian exile marks a watershed in the linguistic history of Hebrew. By the tenth century BCE, two Hebrew-speaking states flourished in the central hill country of Palestine: Israel to the north, in the Samarian hills and portions of central Transjordan and Galilee, and Judah to the south, in the Judean hills, with its capital at Jerusalem. Hebrew spoken in the north significantly differed from that in the south. The Israelites deported by the Assyrians spoke the former, whereas the Judeans deported by the Babylonians spoke the latter. The southern form of Hebrew constitutes the classical phase of the language and is primarily represented by Standard Biblical Hebrew and numerous inscriptions from Judah. In the Hebrew of post-exilic Judah (sixth–second centuries BCE), represented by later biblical literature, we find numerous linguistic features, prototypes of Rabbinic Hebrew, that are entirely absent from the earlier literature. Thus, beneath the surface of pre-Rabbinical Hebrew, for which the Bible is our major source, a remarkable plurality of linguistic traditions extends over some 800 years. It is important to bear this in mind when interpreting cuneiform Hebrew names in the light of Biblical Hebrew and onomastics.
Basic Characteristics of Hebrew Names
It may be argued that a name that is linguistically Hebrew or includes a Yahwistic theophoric element should be classified as a ‘Hebrew name’. Footnote 1 The bulk of Hebrew names in the cuneiform corpus are Yahwistic names.
Applying the aforementioned definition of ‘Hebrew’ to the foreign onomasticon of Babylonia is easier said than done. If Hebrew names are stricto sensu names with nominal or verbal elements that reflect Hebrew grammar or lexicon, Hawšiˁ ‘He saved’ from Nippur would have a typical Hebrew name (//MT Hôšēaˁ הוֹשֵׁעַ). In view of the Hiphil-formation it is linguistically Hebrew rather than Aramaic, which has Aphel-formations (hence, ˀwšˁ and ˀwšˁyh at Elephantine). Moreover, ‘the root Y-Š-ˁ is foreign to Aramaic’ (Reference Muraoka and PortenMuraoka and Porten 1998, 20–1; cf. 113–16). However, the name could also be borne by any of the other Canaanite-speaking population groups and is, for instance, attested among the Transjordan Ammonites (hwšˁl, Reference Al-QananwehAl-Qananweh 2004, 71). Consequently, the major problem that confronts anyone interested in detecting linguistically Hebrew names in the cuneiform corpus of first millennium BCE Babylonia is to distinguish them from Aramaic, Phoenician, and Transjordan equivalents.
Yahwistic names in Babylonian cuneiform sources (i.e., names with the theophoric element YHWH), are Hebrew in the theological sense of the word, ‘seeing that no other ethnic group in pre-Hellenistic Mesopotamia worshiped Yhw’ apart from those originating from Judah (Reference Zadok, Gabbay and SecundaZadok 2014, 111–12).
Besides linguistically and theologically Hebrew names, Šabbātay and Ḥaggay can be classified as ‘culturally’ Hebrew. They refer to religious practices characteristic of the (Biblical) Judean community, such as the observance of Sabbath and religious feasts. The problem is that they were not exclusively borne by Judean exiles or their descendants in Babylonia, and Ḥaggay is also attested among, for instance, Ammonites and Phoenicians (Reference Al-QananwehAl-Qananweh 2004, 73–4; Reference AlstolaAlstola 2020, 56–7). Therefore, when the individuals bearing these names had blood relatives with Yahwistic names, their Judean background is probable and the name may be classified as ‘(culturally) Hebrew’. Otherwise, one has to investigate their circle of acquaintances as well as the archive and overall socio-economic context in which they appear for connections with Judah or Judeans before labelling their name ‘Hebrew’.
Some non-Yahwistic anthroponyms in the cuneiform corpus have parallels in the Bible, but this does not guarantee that they are Hebrew stricto sensu. At the most, such a name hints at the bearer’s Judean descent. Famous biblical figures such as Abraham, Jacob, Benjamin, Menahem, Ezra, and Menashe bore non-Yahwistic names that are, linguistically speaking, not just Hebrew but West Semitic in general. Often parallels exist already in Ugaritic, Amorite, and/or Canaanite-Amarna onomastics from the second millennium BCE. The names listed above, all attested in Babylonian sources from the first millennium BCE, are excluded from this chapter on linguistic grounds, even when advanced prosopographic research established a Judean background for the individuals behind them.
Overall, having a Yahwistic or linguistically Hebrew name or patronym in the Babylonia of the long sixth century BCE signifies Judean (exceptionally, Israelite) descent, but the reverse is not necessarily true. Ethnic Judeans in Babylonia gave their children not only Yahwistic/Hebrew names, but also West Semitic/Aramaic and even Babylonian/Akkadian and Iranian names.
Applied Writing Systems of Hebrew in Cuneiform
Sketch of the Problem
The complicated process of detecting and decoding foreign names in the Babylonian sources, and subsequently encoding them into English, can be illustrated by the name spelled Ia-mu-še-eḫ in a tablet from the Murašû archive (EE 113). He is the father of Mattan-Yāma (Ima-tan-ia-a-ma) ‘Gift of Y’ and, since the latter has a clear Hebrew–Yahwistic compound name, it is likely that we may find his name to be Hebrew as well. This assumption is further corroborated by the fact that he occurs in the company of other men with Yahwistic names, such as Yāḫû-zabad (Idia-a-ḫu-u-za-bad-du) ‘Y has granted’ and Yāḫû-laqīm (Idia-a-ḫu-ú-la-qí-im) ‘Y shall raise’ in an archive that is known for its many Yahwistic names.
In order to crack the cuneiform spelling Ia-mu-še-eḫ, we have to consider certain features related to the cuneiform writing system. First, there is the Neo-/Late Babylonian convention to write w as m. Second, there is the established Babylonian practice to render the West Semitic consonants h and ˁ, for which the cuneiform syllabary did not have a specific sign, with ḫ-signs or leave them unmarked. Finally, there is the problem of rendering diphthongs in cuneiform script and the avoidance of final consonant clusters. Considering all these points, Ia-mu-še-eḫ can be analysed as a cuneiform writing for the Hebrew name Hawšiˁ ‘He saved’.
Converting this information in an acceptable English (Latin-script) form is a difficult balancing act, for which see section on ‘Spelling and Normalisation’.
Cuneiform Orthographies of YHWH
The man who owed barley to the Babylonian Murašû family, according to a cuneiform tablet excavated at Nippur (EE 86), is called Idia-a-ḫu-u-na-tan-nu (Yāḫû-natan) ‘Y has given’. On the tablet’s right edge his name recurs, but this time it is written in alphabetic script as yhwntn. Similarly, the debtor’s name in CUSAS 28 10 from Yāhūdu is spelled Išá-lam-mi-ía-a-ma (Šalam-Yāma) ‘Y completed/is well-being’ in cuneiform and šlmyh in alphabetic script on the same tablet. These and other alphabetic spellings reveal that dia-a-ḫu-u- and -iá-a-ma are cuneiform renderings of the Yahwistic theophoric element.
Actually, the divine name is spelled in numerous ways by the Babylonian scribes ‘who probably wrote what they heard’ (Reference Millard and KhanMillard 2013, 841) and were not restricted by orthographic traditions. It appears in different forms depending on whether it is the first or the last component of the anthroponym.Footnote 2 Alphabetic and cuneiform spellings do not necessarily correspond, and their relation to the actual pronunciation(s) of the divine name remains an open question.
The superscripted d preceding the Yahwistic element in some cases is a modern convention for transcribing the DINGIR sign which Babylonian scribes used to indicate that what follows is the name of a deity. When writing the names of their own gods, such as Marduk or Nabû, they rigorously included it, but for foreign gods they had a more compromising attitude. Therefore, when actually used, it highlights the scribe’s awareness and recognition of the divine nature of YHWH. When absent, it may imply different things – such as, for instance, his ignorance, his denial, or his carelessness. Nebuchadnezzar’s scribes at Babylon c. 591 BCE did not use the DINGIR sign, but their colleagues at Nippur and Yāhūdu at around the same time did (583 and 572 BCE).Footnote 3 It shows that the latter ‘were aware of the divine nature of Yhw at the very beginning of their encounter with the exiles’ (Reference Zadok, Gabbay and SecundaZadok 2014, 111, n. 18). Whether this awareness grew or declined over time, and how far it was influenced by geographical and demographic factors, needs further study.
Characteristics and Limitations of the Cuneiform Writing System
Cuneiform scribes were not required to be consistent in spelling, and the cuneiform script allowed many variations. Despite that, orthographic conventions and historic spellings reduced the scribes’ choices, in particular in writing anthroponyms. They used traditionally fixed logograms to write divine names and recurrent name elements. Predicates such as iddin ‘he gave’, aplu ‘firstborn son’, and zēru ‘offspring’ were more often spelled with logograms (respectively MU, A or IBILA, and NUMUN) than syllabically (i.e., in the way they were pronounced).
Logograms do not show in Hebrew names (and only rarely in West Semitic ones). A few exceptions confirm this rule. Some Babylonian scribes recognised Hebrew kinship terms leading to the use of ŠEŠ and AD for Hebrew ˀaḥ ‘brother’ and ˀab ‘father’ (EE 98:13; PBS 2/1 185:2). In addition, we have one instance each of the logogram DÙ for the Hebrew verb root B-N-Y ‘to create’ (CUSAS 28 37:12) and perhaps also of the logogram MU for Hebrew N-T-N ‘to give’ (Reference Zadok, Gabbay and SecundaZadok 2014, 123).
The cuneiform scribes’ relative consistency when writing Babylonian names contrasts with the high orthographic variation of foreign names. To give an idea, Reference Pearce and WunschLaurie E. Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch (2014, 27) count twelve different writings of the name Rapaˀ-Yāma ‘Y healed’ in the Yāhūdu corpus alone. Some are insignificant for linguistic analysis; for instance, the variation among homophonous signs (ú/u, ia/ía, etc.). In other cases, they may hint at contrasting linguistic relations: Iba-ra-ku-ia-a-ma ‘Y has blessed’ (Barak-Yāma; Hebrew G qatal-perf.) vs. Iba-ri-ki-ia-a-ma ‘Blessed by Y’ (Barīk-Yāma; Aramaic passive participle); Išá-lam-ia-a-ma ‘Y is well-being’ (Šalam-Yāma; Hebrew G qatal-perf.) vs. Išá-lim-ma-a-ma ‘Kept well by Y’ (Šalīm-Yāma; Aramaic passive participle) vs. Iši-li-im-iá-a-ma ‘Y made recompense’ (Šillim-Yāma; Hebrew D qittil-perf.).
Related to the matter under consideration is the degree of the scribes’ phonemic awareness. Were they able to hear and identify the specific Hebrew phonemes and sounds, such as the peculiar West Semitic ś (שֹ) in Maˁśēh-Yāma ‘Y’s work’? Does their occasional rendering with lt (e.g., Ima-al-te-e-ma) suggest they heard a fricative-lateral pronunciation of the phoneme (Reference ZadokZadok 2015a; cf. Reference ZadokZadok 2002, 31 no. 38; Reference Zadok, Gabbay and Secunda2014, 116)? Did they hear the ayin (ˁ) in the names ˁAzar-Yāma (initial) ‘Y helped’ and Šamaˁ-Yāma (internal) ‘Y heard’, the aleph (ˀ) in ˀAṣīl-Yāma (initial) ‘Noble is Y’, the heh (h) in Hawšiˁ (initial) ‘He saved’ and in Yāhû (internal), or the diphthong in some of the names just cited? Did they hear a difference between the k in Kīn-Yāma ‘True is Y’ and its fricative allophone (ḵ) in Yəhôyākîn – assuming that the spirantisation of at least some of the bgdkpt had already started in the Hebrew of the sixth century BCE?
Even if they understood the names or at least heard them correctly, the scribes were not always able to document them properly with the tools at their disposal. Which cuneiform sign or combination of signs could they use to write down, for instance, the Hebrew gutturals?
Ran Zadok extensively dealt with these problems in 1977, in the appendix to his monumental book On West Semites in Babylonia (pp. 243–64), and again in 1988, in the course of his research on The Pre-Hellenistic Israelite Anthroponomy (cf. Reference Millard and KhanMillard 2013, 844). With the publication of the documents from Yāhūdu in 2014 the pool of (Yahwistic) Hebrew names significantly increased, but the rules laid down by him are still in force and only minor additions are in place (Reference ZadokZadok 2015a).
As enhancement to Ran Zadok’s findings, we include here a table (Table 9.1) that visualises the conventional cuneiform renderings of the West Semitic (incl. Hebrew) gutturals in first millennium BCE names from Babylonia. It is based on his data, but differentiates between zero- and vowel-spellings, in view of writings such as Iaq-bi-ia-a-ma (zero) vs. Ia-qa-bi-a-ma (vowel) for the initial ayin in ˁAq(a)b-Yāma ‘Protection is Y/Y protected’. Illustrations from esp. Yahwistic names are provided, except for Amurru-šamaˁ (common West Semitic).
Table 9.1 Cuneiform renderings of the Hebrew gutturals
| Initial | Internal | Final | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ayin | ḫ | Iḫu-uz-za-a = ˁUzzāya | Išá-ma-ḫu-ia-a-ma = Šamaˁ-Yāma | Ia-mu-še-eḫ = Hawšiˁ |
| ˀ | - |
| IdKUR.GAL-šá-ma-ˀ = Amurru-šamaˁ | |
| V | Ia-za-ra-ia-a-ma = ˁAzar-Yāma |
|
| |
| Ø | Iaz-za-ra-ia-a-ma = ˁAzar-Yāma |
| - | |
| g | Ipa-ra-gu-šú = Parˁōš ‘Flea’ (< Parġōš) | |||
| aleph | V |
| Ira-ap-pa-a-a-ma = Rapaˀ-Yāma | - |
| Ø | Iur-mil-ku = ˀŪr-Milk(i) |
| - | |
| ˀ | - | Ira-pa-ˀ-ia-a-ma = Rapaˀ-Yāma | Ira-pa-ˀ | |
| ḥeth | Generally ḫ | |||
| heh | ḫ | Iḫu-ú-na-tanan-na = <Yā>ḫû-natan |
| - |
| ˀ | - |
| - | |
| Ø |
| Iia-a-ḫi-in-nu = Yāḫ<û>-ḥīn | - | |
| k | - |
| - | |
It may happen that the zero and multiple spellings for Hebrew gutturals, long vowels, and consonant clusters leave the modern scholar with more than one choice. In principle, Iḫi-il(-lu)-mu-tu, for which no exact biblical parallel exists, derives from the verb roots Ġ-L-M (> ˁ-L-M) ‘to be young’ (cf. biblical toponym ˁAlemet עָלֶמֶת, Reference ZadokZadok 1988, 67) or Ḥ-L-M (cf. the biblical name Ḥēlem חֵלֶם ‘Strength’, Reference ZadokZadok 1979, 31; Reference Zadok1988, 116). More examples are adduced elsewhere in the chapter (e.g., qatl/qitl-nouns vs. G perf.; and ḥiriq compaginis vs. 1.sg. genitive suffix).
Babylonisation of Hebrew Names
Babylonian scribes occasionally reinterpreted Yahwistic names through re-segmentation of name components, assonance, inter-language homophony, and metathesis. Reference Pearce and WunschLaurie E. Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch (2014, 28, 42–3, 61, 66) notice four occurrences in the Yāhūdu corpus which they analyse in detail. In all these examples, a fine line distinguishes between Judeans reshaping their names to recognisable Babylonian forms (perhaps even with the specific aim of obliterating their Judean identity) and Babylonian scribes nativising foreign names to approximate Akkadian names.
Spelling and Normalisation
Encoding Hebrew names, transmitted in cuneiform script, in Latin script is a difficult balancing act. Some scholars avoid the problem by simply citing the names in their original cuneiform spelling. Otherwise, the choices range from normalisations that are faithful to the cuneiform form (Amušeḫ) to those that are based on historical-linguistic reconstructions (Hawšiˁ) or inspired by biblical parallels with its Tiberian vocalisation (Hôšēˁa הוֹשֵׁעַ); conventional English renderings thereof (Hosea) are acceptable only for popularising publications. In any case, conversion rules for Hebrew and Aramaic names should be the same because they share the same linguistic features. Consistency is desirable, but probably not always attainable.
Particularly complex is transcribing the divine name, as we do not know its original Hebrew articulation and the cuneiform transcriptions are many and confusing. As a result, in the scholarly literature, we find Yāma, Yāw, Yāḫû, among others. In this contribution, I use Y as an abbreviation of the Hebrew divine name in English translations, adopting a neutral stance on this complex issue.
The Name Material in Babylonian Sources
Text Corpora and Statistics
Babylonian sources with Hebrew names are chiefly administrative and legal documents from the sixth and fifth centuries BCE that can be connected to three main types of archives (royal, private, and temple). Most Hebrew names are recorded in the first two types. Very few occur in Babylonian temple archives. A couple appear in documents whose archival context cannot be established. The archival classification provides us with valuable information on the name-bearers’ socio-economic or legal background. Remarkably, Hebrew names are absent from the Neo-Babylonian corpus of historiographic texts. There are also virtually no Hebrew names in the published corpora of administrative and private letters (except perhaps for fBuqāšu in Reference Hackl, Jursa and SchmidlHackl et al. 2014 no. 216).
Four corpora of cuneiform administrative and legal texts stand out, described in much detail by Reference AlstolaTero Alstola (2020, chps 2–5), including bibliographic references to editions and secondary literature. In chronological order, these are:
(1) The royal archives from Babylon, excavated in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace, primarily consisting of ration lists (archive N1). They refer to the Judean king Jehoiachin and his entourage in 591 BCE.
(2) A group of six cuneiform documents, originating from Rassam’s excavations at Abu Habbah (ancient Sippar), that pertain to the descendants of Ariḥ, a family of Judean royal merchants in Sippar in the years 546–493 BCE.
(3) The corpus of c. 200 documents, acquired on the antiquities market, that were drafted at various villages in the rural area south(-east) of Nippur over a period of 95 years, from 572 to 477 BCE. The main villages are Yāhūdu, Našar, and Bīt-Abī-râm.
(4) The private archive of the Babylonian Murašû family found in situ in Nippur. It consists of c. 730 documents dated to the second half of the fifth century BCE (452–413 BCE). Drafted in Nippur-city or in villages in the nearby countryside, they record the business activities of the descendants of Murašû, in the course of which they encountered men of Judean descent, many bearing Yahwistic/Hebrew names. The Murašû archive ‘constitutes the last significant corpus of cuneiform evidence on Judeans in Babylonia. Only a single text survives from the fourth century BCE’ (Reference AlstolaAlstola 2020, 222).
The information that we can draw from these sources is dictated by their archival and archaeological origin (or lack thereof). They were written by and chiefly for the Babylonian members of the urban elite. The only exception seems to be the documents from the environs of Yāhūdu. Here, Judeans do not just appear against the backdrop of other people’s transactions or as an object, but they are the leading characters, leasing land, paying taxes, etc. Even so, they are still presented by indigenous Babylonian scribes who, by recording their foreign names and activities, may have served the royal administration more than the Judeans. Anyway, no sources written by the Judean deportees themselves or their descendants survive. A complicating factor, furthermore, is the incomplete publication of some of the sources, and the scribes’ limited knowledge of Hebrew grammar and culture.
Among the c. 2,500 names in the Murašû archive from Nippur in central Babylonia, Ran Zadok identified seventy Hebrew names (of which thirty-six are Yahwistic): less than 3 per cent. He suspects ‘that this may be just an accident of documentation and it does not necessarily mean that the largest concentration of Judeans in Babylonia was in the Nippur region’ (Reference ZadokZadok 2002, 63).
In and around Yāhūdu, approximately 159 individuals with Yahwistic/Hebrew names can be identified among the roughly 1,000 individuals recorded in c. 200 documents. This means that about 15 per cent of all names there are Yahwistic, with the largest concentration of them occurring in the town of Yāhūdu itself (c. 35 per cent). Variations in counting occur among scholars, but the overall picture remains the same (cf. Reference Pearce, Stökl and WaerzeggersPearce 2015, 20).
Only a handful of Hebrew names are recorded in Uruk and its region, while none are mentioned in Ur, so that one may conclude that ‘very few Judeans resided in southern Babylonia, despite the rich Babylonian documentation from there’ (e.g., the vast Eanna temple archive from Uruk) (Reference Zadok, Gabbay and SecundaZadok 2014, 113; Reference Jursa and ZadokJursa and Zadok 2020, 21, 28–31).
Judeans with Yahwistic/Hebrew names or patronyms also dwelt in the capital and in most of the major cities of northern Babylonia (Sippar, Borsippa, Opis, and Kish). The evidence comes primarily from the royal administration in Babylon and the mercantile community in Sippar. Hebrew names are, however, virtually absent from the private archives of the urbanite North Babylonians and the temple archive of Sippar. For example, among the 1,035 individuals that can be identified in the Nappāḫu family archive from Babylon none bore West Semitic names in general, or Hebrew names in particular. Similarly, only one Hebrew name pops up among the 1,130 individuals in the Egibi family archive, and Hebrew names are rare in the vast Borsippean family archives. No more than eight Yahwistic names occur in the thousands of documents from Sippar’s temple.
Typology of Names
Ran Zadok has written extensively on the West Semitic name typology, and the reader is referred to his studies for details (especially Reference ZadokZadok 1977, 78–170 and Reference ZadokZadok 1988, 21–169). The following sections present a summary of those formations that are relevant for the study of the cuneiform Yahwistic names and the linguistically Hebrew profane names. The examples are illustrative, not exhaustive.
Yahwistic Verbal Sentence Names
Most cuneiform Yahwistic names are verbal sentences, with the name components predominantly put in the order predicate–subject, and without an object (cf. biblical Yahwistic names).
The verbal predicates display the following characteristics: (1) They are always in the G-stem, except the Hiphil in Hawšiˁ ‘He saved’, and a few disputable cases;Footnote 4 (2) Perfect (qtl) is the norm, with only a few predicates in the imperfect (yqtl; e.g., Yigdal-Yāma ‘Y will be(come) great’, Išrib-Yāma ‘Y will propagate’), imperative (e.g., Qī-lā-Yāma ‘Hope for Y!’ < Q-W-Y),Footnote 5 active participle (e.g., Yāḫû-rām ‘Y is exalted’, Nāṭi-Yāma ‘Y bends down’), and passive participle (e.g., Ḥanūn-Yāma ‘Favoured by Y’); (3) The predicate is always in the 3.sg. (except for those in the imperative), and without object suffixes or other extensions, a few exceptions notwithstanding.Footnote 6
Yahwistic Nominal Sentence Names and Genitive Compound Names
In the Yahwistic nominal sentence names the predicate–subject sequence prevails. The predicates are all nouns, except for the adjective in ˀAṣīl-Yāma ‘Noble is Y’. An adjective is also present in Iṭu-ub-ia-ma if understood as Ṭōb-Yāma ‘Good is Y’ (rather than Ṭūb-Yāma ‘Goodness is Y’).
The distinction between qatl and qitl forms is not always clear, partly because qatl could become qitl because of the attenuation a > i, already in Biblical Hebrew names, especially after ayin or near liquids and nasals (e.g., ˁazr > ˁizr, malk > milk). Moreover, the cuneiform scribes may not always have been aware of, or careful enough about, these differences. They may also have heard variant pronunciations for the same name from different speakers.
Further noteworthy is the wavering between segholite (CVCC) and bisyllabic (CVCVC, anaptyctic?) spellings – as, for instance, in the orthographies of Ṣid(i)q-Yāma ‘Justice is Y’. Thus we have a qitl spelling (CVCC) in Iṣi-id-qí-iá-a-ma along with qitil spellings (CVCVC) in Iṣi-di-iq-a-ma and Iṣi-di-qí-ia-a-ma. As a result, it is hard to determine whether the bisyllabic spellings in the following names reflect verbal (G qatal-perf.) or nominal (qatl) predicates: Mal(a)k-Yāma ‘Y rules/The king is Y’, ˁAz(a)z-Yāma ‘Y is strong/Strength is Y’, ˁAq(a)b-Yāma ‘Y protected/Protection is Y’, ˁAt(a)l-Yāma ‘Y is pre-eminent/The prince is Y’, Šal(a)m-Yāma ‘Y completed/Peace is Y’, and Yāḫû-ˁaz(a)r ‘Y helped/Help is Y’.
Uncertainty arises about the exact relationship between the elements in names such as Ṣid(i)q-Yāma: genitive ‘Y’s justice’ or predicative ‘Y is justice’.
Finally, the choice between a ḥiriq compaginis or 1.sg. possessive pronoun cannot be sufficiently determined on the basis of the cuneiform orthographies. For instance, the spellings Iṣi-di-qí-ia-a-ma and Iṣi-id-qí-iá-a-ma do not reveal whether we have Ṣidqi-Yāma ‘Justice is Y’ or Ṣidqī-Yāma ‘My justice is Y’.
Yahwistic Interrogative Sentence Names
Under this category falls the name Mī-kā-Yāma ‘Who is like Y?’.
Yahwistic Names With a Prepositional Phrase
The name Bâd-Yāma (Iba-da-ia-a-ma) ‘In the hand/care of Y’ in a text from the Murašû archive belongs here, and perhaps also Iqí(-il)-la-a-ma, Idi-ḫu-ú-li-ia, and Iia-a-ḫu-lu-nu/ni, if they indeed reflect Hebrew lā ‘for’, respectively, lî ‘for me’ and lānû ‘for us’ (CUSAS 28 77, 90; Reference ZadokZadok 1979, 18–19).
Abbreviated Yahwistic Names
Included in this category are one-element names in which the divine name is shortened by means of suffixes (hypocoristica). Reference Pearce and WunschLaurie E. Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch (2014, 20) list the following abbreviated forms of the final Yahwistic elements: -Ca-a-a, -Ce-e-ia-a-ˀ, -Ci-ia-a-ˀ, Ci-ia/ía, -Cu-ia, -ia-[a]-ˀ, and -ia-a-ˀ. However, not all names ending in, for instance, -Ci-ia/ía or -Ca-a-a in cuneiform texts are abbreviated Yahwistic names. These endings are common hypocoristic endings in Babylonian and West Semitic onomastics. Accordingly, names such as Iḫa-an-na-ni-ía, Ipa-la-ṭa-a-a, and Izab-di-ia are not abbreviated Yahwistic names, unless additional (con)textual data confirm this.
A clear example is that of Ḥanannī ‘He has been merciful to me’, whose father bore the Iranian name Udarnā. We would not consider him a worshipper of YHWH in tablet BE 10 84 from the Murašû archive, where his name is spelled Iḫa-an-na-ni-ˀ, were it not for two other tablets from the same archive where his name is rendered with the theophoric element fully spelled Iḫa-na-ni/nu-ia-a-ma ‘Y has been merciful to me’ (BE 9 69; PBS 2/1 107). One of his brothers was called Zabdia (Izab-di-ia) ‘Gift’: did he have an abbreviated Yahwistic name – for example, Zabad-Yāma ‘Given by/Gift of Y’ (cf. PBS 2/1 208: Iza-bad-ia-a-ma) – or a plain West Semitic one derived from the root Z-B-D with a hypocoristic ending -ia? Similar illustrative cases of individuals bearing both a full Yahwistic name and a hypocoristic thereof derive from the Yāhūdu corpus: Banā-Yāma (Iba-na-a-ma) ‘Y created’, son of Nubāya, is also known as Bānia (Iba-ni-ia) ‘He created’; Nīr(ī)-Yāma (Ini-i-ri-ia-a-ma) ‘Y’s light/Y is (my) light’, son of ˀAḥīqar, as Nīrāya (Ini-ir-ra-a, Ini-ir-ra-a-a) ‘Light’; and Samak-Yāma (Isa-ma-ka-ˀ-a-ma) ‘Y supported’, father of Rēmūtu, as Samakāya (Isa-ma-ka-a-a) ‘He supported’.Footnote 7
Finally, the Yāhūdu and Murašû corpus attest names with an abbreviated form of the divine name in initial position: Iia-a-ḫi-in(-nu), Yāḫ<û>-ḥīn ‘Y is grace’ and Iḫu-ú-na-tanan-na, <Yā>ḫû-natan ‘Y has given’.
Non-Yahwistic Hebrew Names and Hypocoristica
The non-Yahwistic names are typically one element names with(out) hypocoristic suffixes, rarely two-element names. The hypocoristic endings are feminine -ā, adjectival -ān > -ōn, adjectival -ay(ya), and ancient suffixes -ā, -ī/ē, -ūt, or -ī+ā (= ia).
There are two categories depending on the predicate: names with an isolated verbal predicate and those based on nouns. fBarūkā ‘Blessed’, Hawšiˁ ‘He saved’, Ḥanan(nī) ‘He consoled (me)’, Yamūš ‘He feels/removes’ (Reference ZadokZadok 2015b), Natūn ‘Given’, Naḥūm (Ina-ḫu-um-mu) ‘Consoled’, Satūr ‘Hidden/Protected’, and ˁAqūb (Ia-qu-bu) ‘Protected’ belong to the first group. ˀAškōlā ‘Bunch of grapes’, Ḥaggay ‘(Born) on a feast’, Ḥannān(ī/ia) ‘Consolation’, Ḥillumūt ‘Strength’, Mattania ‘Gift’, Naḥḥūm (Ina-aḫ-ḫu-um) ‘Consolation’, ˁAqqūb (Iaq-qu-bu) ‘Protection’, Pal(a)ṭay ‘Refuge’, Parˁōš ‘Flea’, fPuˁullā ‘Achievement’, Šabbātay ‘(Born) on Sabbath’, Šamaˁōn ‘Sound’, and Šapān ‘(Rock) badger’ belong to the second group, but the line is sometimes hard to draw due to defective cuneiform orthographies: for example, Iši-li-im for Šil(l)im ‘He is (kept) well’ or Šillīm ‘Loan’. Yašūb-ṭill(ī) ‘(My) Dew will return’Footnote 8 and Yašūb-ṣidq(ī) ‘(My) Justice will return’ are extensions of the first group. For most of the above-listed names recorded Yahwistic compounds exist.
The nominal patterns are: (1) simple patterns (qatl, qitl, and qatal), (2) patterns extended by gemination or reduplication of the root consonants (qall, qittul, qutull, qattāl, qittīl, and qattūl caritative formations), (3) patterns extended by prefixes (maqtal), and (4) four-radical nouns. Admittedly, it is often difficult to determine the exact pattern from the cuneiform orthographies. Should Iḫa(-an)-na-nu, Iḫa-na(-an)-nu, Iḫa-na-an-ni-ˀ, and Iḫa-an-na-ni-ia be read Ḥanan(nī) ‘He has been merciful (to me)’ or Ḥannān(ī/ia) ‘(My) Consolation’? Content-wise, the nominal predicates refer to physical or mental features, animals, plants, and time of birth.
The isolated verbal predicates are in the G passive particple (qatūl), G perf. (qatal), and impf. (yaqtul), D perf. (qittil), or Hiphil perf. (haqtil).
Meticulous linguistic analysis is needed before securely classifying these names as specifically Hebrew (and not, for instance, Canaanite, Aramaic, or Phoenician). A case in point is Šapān (Išap-an-nu vel sim., Reference ZadokZadok 2002, 12, 42). It is exclusively Hebrew, because phonetically it is strikingly different from its Phoenician equivalent where unstressed a shifted to ō, as seen in the name’s occurrence in Neo-Assyrian sources Isa-pu-nu. From a prosopographical point of view, it is noteworthy that his father bore a Babylonian name (Bēl-ēṭir). Similar grammatical and prosopographical data may help in the ethno-linguistic classification of other non-Yahwistic names. However, phonological rules in particular are tricky as a means to separate Hebrew from other (North)west Semitic names, in particular Aramaic names.
Female Names
Most Hebrew female names attested in cuneiform originate from the Yāhūdu corpus: fYapaˁ-Yāḫû ‘Y appeared’ was the wife of Rapaˀ-Yāma and granddaughter of Samak-Yāma; fYāḫû-ḥīn ‘Y is grace’ was the daughter of Ima-le-šú (unclear) and granddaughter of Mī-kā-Yāma. fPuˁullā ‘Achievement’ was a female slave bearing a Hebrew name. fNanāya-kānat ‘Nanāya is reliable’, finally, bore a hybrid name that will be discussed in further detail later in the chapter.
Outside this corpus, only three women with Hebrew names are attested. fˀAbī-Yāma ‘My father is Y’, mentioned in a text without archival context (Reference ZadokZadok 2002, 45 no. 156), was the daughter of Ii-ri-ˀ (unclear). fBarūkā ‘Blessed’, a slave and wife of Kuṣura (Babylonian name), is known from the Murašû archive (EE 100). fYāḫû-dimr(ī) ‘Y’s strength/Y is (my) strength’ bore a hybrid name (see #4 in section ‘Hybrid Names’).
Slave Names
Judeans in Yāhūdu owned slaves with Babylonian (fAna-muḫḫi-Nanāya-taklāku), Babylonian–Aramaic (fNanāya-biˁī), and Egyptian (fḪuṭuatā) names, as well as the following Hebrew names: ˁAbd(i)-Yāḫû ‘Y’s servant’, slave (ardu) of Nīr(ī)-Yāma and his brothers, and fPuˁullā ‘Achievement’, slave woman (amtu) of Ṣidq(ī)-Yāma. Mentioned in the Murašû archive from Nippur are the following slaves with Yahwistic names: Iia-a-ḫu-lu-ni (=? Yāḫû-lānû ‘Y is for us’), slave (ardu) of the Murašûs; Mattan-Yāma ‘Y’s gift’, servant (ardu) of queen Parysatis; Barīk-Yāma ‘Blessed by Y’, servant (ardu) of the Iranian official Artabara; and the non-Yahwistic Hebrew fBarūkā ‘Blessed’, slave woman (amtu) of the Murašûs. The following servant attested in the Murašû archive has a Hebrew patronym: Il-yadīn (West Semitic), son of Yadaˁ-Yāma ‘Y knew’, servant of prince Artaḫšar. Note that several of these men serving Iranian princes and queens or Iranian noblemen were semi-free servants rather than chattel slaves.
Hybrid Names
Yahwistic names with non-Hebrew predicates are listed here. Nos. 1–3 have Akkadian predicates, nos. 4–7 Aramaic ones. The predicate in no. 8 can be Akkadian or Aramaic.Footnote 9
(1) Three men in Babylonia bore the ‘Beamtenname’ Yāḫû-šarru-uṣur ‘Y, protect the king!’.
(2) Dagal-Yāma ‘Y looked (upon)’ is attested in Yāhūdu (unless it is a metathesis of the Hebrew Gadal-Yāma ‘Y is/became great’).
(3) Yāḫû-aḫu-ēreš ‘Y has desired a brother’ occurs in an unassigned text from the Nippur area (Reference Zadok, Finkelstein, Robin and RömerZadok 2016, 547).
(4) fYāḫû-dimr(ī) ‘Y’s strength/Y is (my) strength’ shows up in the Ebabbar temple archive (CT 57 700).
(5) Yāḫû-laqīm ‘Y shall raise’ is twice recorded in the Murašû archive.
(6) Barīk-Yāma ‘Blessed by Y’ occurs in the Yāhūdu corpus where it is unambiguously spelled Iba-ri-ki-ia-a-ma vel sim.
(7) Yāḫû-idr ‘Y is help’ from Yāhūdu, spelled Iia-a-ḫu-ú-e-dir (Reference ZadokZadok 2015b).
(8) Yāḫû-nūr(ī) ‘Y’s flame/Y is a (my) flame’ appears in an unassigned text from a village ‘presumably not far from Babylon or Borsippa’ (Reference ZadokZadok 2002, 28 no. 9).
One may find hybrid interpretations for several other Yahwistic names, but they are usually highly speculative, based on misreadings, or otherwise unconvincing.
Names with foreign deities and generally West Semitic predicates are excluded from the list, even if the same predicate also appears with YHWH. It concerns names such as Bēl, Nusku, and Adad + ba-rak-ku/a/i, Nabû + -a-qa-bi, -na-tan-na, -ta5-ga-bi, -ša-ma-ˀ, -si-im-ki-ˀ, -ra-pa-ˀ, Šamaš + -ḫa-il, -ia-da-ˀ, and Bēl + ia-a-da-aḫ. They need to be thoroughly examined for possible links with Judah or Judean exiles before they can be considered Hebrew. On that account, at least the following two anthroponyms are liable candidates. fNanāya-kānat ‘Nanāya is reliable’, daughter of fDibbī (unclear), granddaughter of Dannāya, (son of Šalti-il, West Semitic), and sister of Mušallam (West Semitic) married in Yāhūdu in the presence of several men with Yahwistic/Hebrew names and/or patronyms (Reference AbrahamAbraham 2005). ˀŪr-Milk(i) ‘Milk’s light/Milk is (my) light’ is explicitly labelled ‘the Judean’ in the ration lists from Nebuchadnezzar’s palace (N1 archive).
Elements in Names
The documented Yahwistic names are compound names (two elements), the non-Yahwistic ones are non-compound (one element, often with hypocoristic endings). Two individuals from Yāhūdu with profane compound names (predicate yašūb + subject) test the above general rule. The known Akkadian hybrid names typically consist of three elements.
The sole named deity in Hebrew names is YHWH. In one instance, this theophoric element interchanged with Bēl in the name of the same individual (see section on ‘Naming Practices’). If fNanāya-kānat, who married a Babylonian man in Yāhūdu, was indeed of Judean descent, which is likely but cannot be proven beyond doubt (Reference AbrahamAbraham 2005), her name would be the only Hebrew name that refers to a divinity other than YHWH.
The common nominal elements in Yahwistic names are assembled (in Hebrew alphabetic order) in Table 9.2. As can be seen, the nominal elements often express feelings of deliverance, strength, and protection, or are typical kinship and dependence terms.
Table 9.2 Hebrew nominal elements in Yahwistic personal names
| ˀab | ‘father’ | maq(i)n | ‘possession’ |
| ˀuhl (> ˀohl) | ‘tent’ | mattan | ‘gift/creation’ |
| *ˀawš (> *ˀawuš)Footnote 10 | ‘gift’ | nūr (Aram./Akk.) | ‘light, flame’ |
| ˀaḥ | ‘brother’ | nīr | ‘light, lamp’ |
| ˀaṣīl | ‘noble’ | ˁabd | ‘servant’ |
| ˀūr (> ˀōr) | ‘light’ | ˁazz, ˁuzz | ‘strong/strength’ (or verbal) |
| baˁl | ‘lord’ | ˁazr (or ˁizr) | ‘help’ (of verbal) |
| gabr | ‘man’ | ˁidr (< ˁiḏr, Aram.) | ‘help’ |
| gīr | ‘client’ | ˁaqb (Aram.?) | ‘protection’ (or verbal) |
| dimr (< ḏimr, Aram.) | ‘strength’ | ˁatl | ‘prince’ (or verbal) |
| ḥūl | ‘maternal uncle’ (< ḥāl, unless < ḥayl ‘strength’) | pilˀ/pil(l)Footnote 11 | ‘wonder/intervention(?)’ |
| ḥīnn | ‘grace’ | palṭ (or pālāṭ) | ‘refuge’ |
| ṭūb, ṭībFootnote 12/ṭōb | ‘goodness/good’ | ṣidq | ‘righteousness’ |
| ṭall (> ṭill) | ‘dew’ | šalm (or šilm) | ‘well-being/peace’ (or verbal) |
| yēš (or ˀīš; yišˁ) (wr. Iiš-ši-ˁ) | ‘present (or: man; salvation)’ | šamr | ‘safeguard’ (or verbal) |
| kūl | ‘everything’ (or verbal) | šūˁ | ‘deliverance’ |
| malk (> milk) | ‘king’ (or verbal) | šūr | ‘bulwark’ |
| maˁśēh | ‘work/deed’ |
The nominal elements in non-Yahwistic names were listed earlier in the chapter.
The Hebrew (West Semitic) verbs in personal names attested in Babylonian sources are reproduced in Table 9.3. The verbs are cited according to their root radicals in Hebrew alphabetic order.
Table 9.3 Hebrew verbs in personal names attested in Babylonian texts
| ˀ-Z-N (G/Hiph.) | ‘to give ear, hear’ | S-M-K | ‘to support’ |
| ˀ-M-R | ‘to say’ | ˁ-Z-Z | ‘to be strong’ |
| B-N-Y | ‘to create’ | ˁ-Z-R | ‘to help’ |
| B-R-K | ‘to bless’ | ˁ-Q-B (Aram.?) | ‘to protect’ |
| G-D-L | ‘to be(come) great’ | ˁ-T-L | ‘to be pre-eminent’ |
| G-L-Y | ‘to redeem’ | P-D-Y | ‘to ransom’ |
| G-M-R | ‘to accomplish’ | P-L-Ṭ | ‘to bring into security, deliver’ |
| D-L-Y | ‘to draw out, rescue’ | P-L-L | ‘to intervene’ |
| Z-B-D | ‘to grant’ | P-ˁ-L | ‘to accomplish’ |
| Z-K-R | ‘to remember’ | Ṣ-P-Y(?)Footnote 13 | ‘to expect for’ |
| Ḥ-W-Y | ‘to live’ | Q-W-Y | ‘to hope for’ |
| Ḥ-K-Y (G/D) | ‘to await, hope for’ | Q-W/Y-M (G) | ‘to rise, stand up (vindicate)’ |
| Ḥ-N-N | ‘to be merciful, show favour, console’ | Q-W/Y-M (Hiph.) | ‘to raise’ |
| Ḥ-P-Y (G/D)Footnote 14 | ‘to cover/protect’ | Q-N-Y | ‘to acquire; create’ |
| Ḥ-Š-B | ‘to consider, value’ | Q-Ṭ-B | (uncl.) |
| Ḥ-T-Y/ˀ | ‘to smite’(?)Footnote 15 | R-W/Y-M (G) | ‘to be(come) exalted’ |
| Y-D-ˁ | ‘to know’ | R-W/Y-M (Hiph.) | ‘to lift up’ |
| Y-P-ˁ | ‘to appear’ | R-P-ˀ | ‘to heal’ |
| Y-Š-ˁ (G/Hiph.) | ‘to save’ | Ś-G-B | ‘to be high’ |
| K-W/Y-L | ‘to contain’ | Ś-R-Y | ‘to persevere; judge’ |
| K-W/Y-N (G) | ‘to be firm/true’ | Š-W-B | ‘to return’ |
| K-W/Y-N (Hiph.) | ‘to make firm’ | Š-K-N | ‘to dwell, be manifest’ |
| M-W/Y-Š | ‘to feel; remove’ | Š-L-M (G) | ‘to be well; to complete’ |
| M-L-K | ‘to be king, to rule’ | Š-L-M (D) | ‘to keep well, recompense’ |
| N-D-B | ‘to be generous’ | Š-M-ˁ | ‘to hear’ |
| N-Ḥ-M (G/D) | ‘to comfort’ | Š-M-R | ‘to keep, preserve’ |
| N-Ṭ-Y | ‘to bend down’ | Š-N-Y/ ˀ(?)Footnote 16 | ‘to shine; be exalted’ |
| N-T-N | ‘to give’ | Š-R-B | ‘to propagate’ |
Naming Practices
Filiation
Men with Hebrew names in the Babylonian sources all have two-tier filiations, except for those among them who were slaves. They have a given name followed by a patronym, but lack a family name. The use of family names could have been quite convenient as identifier in cases where more than one ‘X son of Y’ was living in the same locality. This rarely happened in the countryside. In the village Yāhūdu patronyms were sufficient to distinguish between the three ˁAbd(i)-Yāḫûs who lived there simultaneously (CUSAS 28 15).
Family names were the prerogative of the indigenous Babylonian population and typically borne by its urban elite (see Chapter 4). We do not expect the deportees from Judah or their descendants to have them. Even those who settled in cities or worked for institutional households as merchants and lower administrative clerks remained outside the Babylonian elite group bearing distinct family names. It does not mean that the long-established Babylonian urbanites refrained from developing close business and personal relationships with newcomers from Judah. They even married their daughters, and we wonder whether Gūzānu’s future children, from his marriage with the Judean bride fKaššāya, were absorbed into his clan and allowed to use their father’s Babylonian family name (Ararru).Footnote 17
‘Beamtennamen’
According to the biblical narrative, Daniel and his three friends received Babylonian (lit. ‘Chaldean’) names by royal decree upon their entry into the palace so that Daniel, for instance, became Belteshazzar (בֵּלְטְשַׁאצַּר). Daniel’s new name, meaning ‘Bēltu, protect the king!’ (Bēltu-šarru-uṣur, in Akkadian), emphasises concern for the Babylonian king’s welfare and loyalty to the state. It was typically borne by palace or civil servants. This story reflects a reality well known from Babylonian cuneiform texts (see Chapter 5).
Among the Judean exiles and their descendants living in Yāhūdu, we encounter two men named Yāḫû-šarru-uṣur ‘Y, protect the king!’. One was the son of Nubāya, the other the father of Zakar-Yāma ‘Y has remembered’. The same name was borne by a man among the foreign residents in Susa. His father had the Akkadian name Šamaš-iddin (OECT 10 152, 493 BCE).
These men act as creditors and witnesses in private transactions. We do not know whether they also worked in the service of the state or were dependents of the palace household, but it is certainly possible given their name. Upon entering the palace household or assuming administrative duties, they changed their name (or had it changed) to names that expressed their loyalty to the king. However, it is not entirely impossible that these are birth names. In that case, they are an expression of the parents’ loyalty to the Babylonian king, and we do not know if the children eventually became court officials or civil servants as adults.
Double Names, Nicknames, and Name Changes
Babylonian scribes had a fixed formula to describe individuals with double names: ‘PN1 whose (other) name is PN2’ (PN1 ša šumšu PN2). Explicit cases of Judeans in Babylonia with double names are at present not attested. Yet, several men with Yahwistic names in Yāhūdu are attested under their full and short name (for examples, see the section ‘Abbreviated Yahwistic Names’). In addition, we encounter among the Judean exiles and their descendants at least one man who changed or had his name changed. Bēl-šarru-uṣur became Yāḫû-šarru-uṣur, in all likelihood for reasons of etiquette against the backdrop of governmental changes (Reference Pearce, Stökl and WaerzeggersPearce 2015, 24–7).
Finally, there is Banā-Yāma ‘Y created’, son of Nubāya, who is also called, or became, Bānia in the course of his life. In 532 BCE, and again in 528 BCE, the scribe Arad-Gula had to write down this man’s name. At first he wrote Iba-ni-ia, which is a common orthography for the non-compound Babylonian name Bānia, from the Akkadian noun bānû ‘creator’ + hypocoristic suffix -ia. Had he not recognised the theophoric element, invented a unique orthography for it (-ia), or did he Babylonise the Hebrew name? Or, did Banā-Yāma, when asked for his name, abbreviate it to Bānia to make it sound more Babylonian (and perhaps even obliterate his Judean identity?). Four years later, when writing Iba-na-a-ma Arad-Gula clearly understood it as a compound name composed of the root B-N-Y in the G qatal-perf. (// Biblical Hebrew bānāh) ‘he created’ + the divine name, now spelled in one of the conventional orthographies -a-ma. Alternatively, Banā-Yāma had two names simultaneously: a long theophoric one (formal?), and an abbreviated one (nickname?) which happened to sound very Babylonian.
Programmatic or Symbolic Names
Iia-a-šu-bu, son of Iḫa-ka-a (PBS 2/1 85:2–3), are short(ened) Hebrew names, the first one similar to biblical Yāšûb (יָשׁוּב) ‘He will return’, from the root Š-W/Y-B, the second one probably a hypocoristic form of biblical Ḥăkalyāh (חֲכַלְיָה) ‘Wait for Y!’, from the root Ḥ-K-Y. This being the case, ‘these names may express the expectations of the exiles for their repatriation’ (Reference ZadokZadok 1979, 18). The same hopes are expressed in the imperative Yahwistic names Šūbnā-Yāma (Išu-bu-nu-ia-a-ma) ‘Y, return (urgently)!’, Qī-lā-Yāma ‘Hope for Y!’ (Q-W-Y), and perhaps also Isi-pa-ˀ-ia-a-ma (<? Ṣ-P-Y) ‘Expect (for) Y!’.Footnote 18
Biblical Names
Almost all Yahwistic/Hebrew names in cuneiform texts from first-millennium BCE Babylonia surface in the Bible in one form or another. The same verbs and nouns are productive in biblical name-giving, a few exceptions notwithstanding (e.g., M-W/Y-Š, N-Ṭ-Y, Š-N-Y?, Ś-G-B, ḥūl, ˀaškōl, šūr).
With the help of the handy list by Reference Pearce and WunschLaurie E. Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch (2014, 308–11), similarities and differences become easily apparent, although the lack of vocalisation for the biblical names hinders the comparison. Moreover, it is limited to Yahwistic names and sets out from attestation in Yāhūdu, or in Yāhūdu and Murašû, so that names attested in Murašû alone or in other sources (e.g., the ration lists from Babylon’s N1 archive) remain unnoticed.
Additional useful tools for comparative research are available in Reference ZadokZadok 1988, such as the list of roots productive in biblical name-giving (pp. 350–5) and the list of biblical names in cuneiform sources from the first millennium BCE (both Neo-Assyrian and Neo-/Late Babylonian; pp. 459–64).
The most common differences between the biblical names and their cuneiform parallels regard sequence, vowel pattern, and predicate typology. Two examples from among many are: cuneiform Yāḫû-ˁaz ‘Y is strong/strength’ (G perf. or qatl noun) vs. biblical ˁUzzīyāh(û) (עֻזִּיָה(וּ ‘My strength is Y’ (qutl noun); and ˁAqab-Yāma or Yāma-ˁaqab ‘Y protected’ (G perf.) and ˁAqb(ī)-Yāma ‘(My) protection is Y’ (qatl noun) vs. Yaˁăqōb יַעֲקֹב ‘He will protect’ (G impf., without YHWH). Further note that the comparison sometimes requires either replacing the Yahwistic theophoric element in the cuneiform name with ˀEl or ˀab, or omitting it altogether, so that cuneiform ˀUhl(ī)-Yāma ‘A (My) tent is Y/Y’s tent’ can be compared with biblical ˀOhŏlîˀāb אָהֳלִיאָב ‘My tent is the father’, Qanā-Yāma ‘Y acquired’ with ˀElqānāh אֶלְקָנָה ‘El acquired’, and Yāḫû-ḥīn ‘Y is grace’ with Ḥēn חֵן ‘Grace’.
Socio-Onomastics
Socio-Economic Profile
Bearers of Yahwistic/Hebrew names in Babylonia in the long sixth century constituted a heterogeneous socio-economic group. The majority was linked in one way or another to the palatial sector, mostly implicitly, though sometimes explicitly. Upon arrival in Babylonia, they were integrated in the state’s land-for-service development programme. They received a plot of land in underdeveloped areas against the payment of various imposts and the performance of military and civil service. In this manner, they could invest in their own livelihood, and at the same time provide the state with staple crops, cash income, and cheap labour. This was the destiny of the Judeans living in the environs of Yāhūdu in the sixth and early fifth centuries BCE. A similar type of semi-dependent Judean landholders shows up in the Murašû archive of the late fifth century, but new types emerge. Judeans are now also attested as owners of private land, as minor officials in the service of royalty and high officials, and probably even as entrepreneurs in the land-for-service sector, like the Murašûs, or as their business partner.
In the capital Babylon deportees from Judah were detained in official custody. Among them we find king Jehoiachin, his five sons (without their names), seven men with Yahwistic names, and a group of unnamed courtiers (ša rēši) from Judah. They received oil rations from the storerooms in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace or assisted in their distribution.
About 60 km north of Babylon, in the port city of Sippar, Judeans with Yahwistic/Hebrew names or patronyms were active members of the local merchant community (Reference AlstolaAlstola 2017). The better known are the descendants of Ariḥ: his four sons, of whom two had Yahwistic names, and his five grandchildren, children of his son Hawšiˁ, with Babylonian names. They traded in gold with the local temple and, in their function of ‘royal merchants’, most likely partook in international, long-distance trade. Their social network consisted of fellow Judeans and merchants, but also of members of long-established Babylonian priestly families.
A few Judeans were dependants of Babylonian temples or were hired by the temples to farm its lands.
For many of the recorded Judeans we remain in the dark as to their socio-economic whereabouts, because they appear among the witnesses of contracts and thus played no more than a passive role in the transactions.
Almost all the recorded Judeans are freemen, or at least belonged to the class of the semi-free population in Babylonia. Attached to the land-for-service system, the state and its representatives controlled them and exploited their labour quite extensively, but they were not chattel slaves (Reference BlochBloch 2017). Some of them served the local or state administration as minor officials and ‘as such they were responsible for collecting taxes, organising work and military service, and ensuring the efficient cultivation of royal lands’ (Reference AlstolaAlstola 2020, 261).
Courtiers (ša rēš šarri) and scribes trained in the Aramaic language and script (sēpiru) were recruited from among the Judean deportees to work in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. Later, we also find such scribes among the Judeans in Nippur. Reference BlochBloch (2018, 291–2, 379–97) identified five men with Yahwistic names and two with Yahwistic patronyms bearing the title sēpiru among the Murašû tablets. Other professions occupied by Judeans, such as fishermen and herdsmen, are adduced by Zadok in his various studies (mainly Reference ZadokZadok 1979 and Reference Zadok2002).
Names As Carriers of Identity
Family trees contain valuable information on acculturation among the Judean exiles and their descendants. The family of Samak-Yāma in Yāhūdu stuck to the tradition of its ancestors, and over three generations all recorded members received Hebrew names: Samak-Yāma → Rapaˀ-Yāma → ˀAḥīqam (West Semitic) → Nīr(ī)-Yāma, Ḥaggay, Yāḫû-ˁaz, Yāḫû-ˁizrī, and Yāḫû-šūˁ. The family tree of the bride fKaššāya in Sippar reveals a different situation (Reference BlochBloch 2014). She and her four siblings had Babylonian names, but going up the tree we see a mixture of Yahwistic/Hebrew and Babylonian names. Her father was Hawšiˁ, her mother fGudādītu (Hebrew–Aramaic). Hawšiˁ had three brothers, two with Babylonian names, one with a Yahwistic name. Their father, fKaššāya’s grandfather, went by the name Ariḥ (Hebrew–Aramaic). The family tree of ˀAḥīqar bears witness to still another tendency – namely, to return to Yahwistic names after two generations bearing Akkadian and West Semitic names (Reference AlstolaAlstola 2020, 120).
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