This is one of the best examples available in demonstrating the thesis that the redactors of the Tanach consciously re-invented history through the manipulation of etymology.
Be'er Lechi Ro'i appears in Genesis 16:14, 24:62, and again in Genesis 25:11 and Judges 15:19, of which the latter will prove to be the key.
On its first appearance the author states that it means "the Well of the Life of Vision" (whatever that may mean anyway!), treating Ro'i as stemming from the root RA'AH - ראה - which gives Lirot = "to see"; and that it was situated between Kadesh and Bered on the southernmost borders of Kena'an.
But what Be'er Lechi Ro'i (same consonants, different pointing) actually means is "Well of the Jawbone of the Ox", and it was the water-shrine of the exiled Egyptian "prophetess" (in brackets for the moment) Hagar - her name, from which the Arabic "hejira" is derived, means "refugee") who was adopted by the Beney Yishma-El, and through them absorbed into the Edomite cults. The purpose of the jaw-bone was the giving of oracular prophecies. How do I know? Be patient.
The reference in Genesis 25:11 is particularly interesting because it has Yitschak living there at the time that Eli-Ezer brought Rivkah from Charan; it was here that he took Rivkah into his late mother's tent and made her his wife: not simply the sacred marriage but the anointing of a new High Priestess after the death of her predecessor. Sarah is usually reckoned to have dwelled at Chevron, and Av-Raham at Be'er Sheva (an interesting comment on their "marriage" in itself), and neither of them are normally associated with what is clearly an Egyptian cult.
The reference in Genesis 25:11 is particularly interesting because it has Yitschak living there at the time that Eli-Ezer brought Rivkah from Charan; it was here that he took Rivkah into his late mother's tent and made her his wife: not simply the sacred marriage but the anointing of a new High Priestess after the death of her predecessor. Sarah is usually reckoned to have dwelled at Chevron, and Av-Raham at Be'er Sheva (an interesting comment on their "marriage" in itself), and neither of them are normally associated with what is clearly an Egyptian cult.
Genesis 25:11 nonetheless confirms Yitschak's continued residence at Be'er Lechi Ro'i, after both his parents' deaths. And yet Genesis 16 told us very clearly that Hagar ran away from Sarah and Av-Raham, not from but to Be'er Lechi Ro'i; which makes Yitschak's habitation there either entirely spurious, or really rather reproachable - that he should make his home at the very place to which Hagar fled, driven out by Sarah because a child born to Hagar would have higher status than any child who might in the future be born to her. It was at Be'er Lechi Ro'i that Hagar was told by the angel that she was pregnant with Yishma-El; and now here is Yitschak, living precisely there, as if, like Ya'akov after him, he had stolen his brother's birthright. Why has no scholar, religious or secular, ever picked up this detail?
From all this, we can now see in the tale of Sarah compelling Av-Raham to send Hagar away, the reality of the Sarah cult replacing the Hagar cult - an Assyrian coming up from the south (they were in Mitsrayim, which is to say Egypt, immediately before this, which is presumably where they acquired Hagar), to replace an eastern outpost of Egypt - and then itself being transformed into, or replaced by, an Aramaean version headed by Rivkah. The goddess is the only constant, though she goes by many different names at different times.
This leaves only one question to be answered: whose jawbone was it? The answer is found in Judges 15. Verse 19 tells us that a thirsty Shimshon (Samson) prayed to his god for water, and his god cleaved a hollow in a rock to bring forth water. Shimshon named the place Eyn Ha Koreh (עין הקורא), but it was known afterwards as Lechi (לחי). Eyn means "a fountain", and Koreh is "a partridge" (קרא) rather than "a reading aloud" (קרא), or "a calling out" which is how it is normally translated; though the oracular nature of the shrine in fact makes both equally plausible.
Oracles were not normally read however, and if they were, at this stage of history, it would have had to be from a hieroglyphic or cuneiform text, as the alphabet was centuries from being invented. On the other hand, the partridge, and especially the hobbling-dance known as Pesach which was associated with the partridge, are closely connected to the coronation rites of the Danite sun-god (and echoed in the coronations of both Ya'akov and Mosheh).
And as to the jawbone. The request for water in verse 19 follows the completion of several of his Heraklean labours, the last of which was his slaying of a thousand Pelishtim with...the jawbone of an ass (v15). The spot where the jawbone was left was named Ramat Lechi (רמת לחי), and Ramat always means "a hill-shrine", usually a megalithic temple known as a cromlech.
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