Why do most translations pronounce his name as Echi and not Achi, which is spelled the same and a very common name? Do they know something that I have missed? Let's find out.
Genesis 46:21 names him as one of the sons of Bin-Yamin, alongside Bela (בלע), Becher (בכר), Ashbel (אשבל), Gera (גרא), Na'aman (נעמן), Rosh (ראש), Mupim (מפים), Chupim (חפים) and Ard (ארד). An odd list, given that Mupim and Chupim suggest tribes (citizens of Egyptian Moph and "sea-side dwellers"), while a Becher is a drinking-cup (Yoseph famously hid one in Bin-Yamin's luggage in Genesis 44), Ashbel is probably a form of Ish-Ba'al, Rosh could be the source of a river or the summit of a mountain... like so many of the supposedly genealogical tables in the Tanach, there may well be something other than the genealogical involved. Let's find out!
1 Chronicles 8:5/6 certainly doesn't help us unravel any confusion, being rather confused itself. It refers to an Echud (אחוד) as the son of Bin-Yamin's son Bela, but in verse 3 it calls him him Avi-Chud (אביחוד), not Echud, verse 6 has Echud, but verse 7 has Achi-Chud (אֲחִיחֻֽד); the following verse then names his sons, but it is not clear if they are really his sons or his brothers. Whether as sons or brothers, it connects Echud with Adar (אדר) - the Genesis list had Ard - Gera (גרא), (Avichud?), Avi-Shu'ah (אבישוע), Na'aman (נעמן), Acho'ach (אחוח) - which keeps the Ach for "brother" but not the rest - Gera (the repetition is in the text), Shephuphan (שפפן) and Churam (חורם), the last two presumably standing in for Mupim and Chupim. An Achi-Yah (אחיה) is also mentioned, seemingly as Echud's son. He later fathered Uzah (עזה)and the Achi-Chud (אחיחד) mentioned previously. In truth, the only thing that is useful about this text, is its corroboration of our justification in claiming other errors.
The same Chronicles verse places them in Gev'a (גבע = "high place"), but states that they moved to Manachat (מנחת = "resting place") which suggests either nomadic shepherds or a mythological allegory. Gev'a may be Giv-Yah, which figures so centrally in the story of Sha'ul; from the root meaning "hill", it was one of the most ancient of shrines, later a Levitical city, but originally named not for its geography but for the Egyptian god Geb whose shrines gave many locations their names (Gev'a, Giv-On, Giv-Yah et al); this one was situated in the tribal domain of Bin-Yamin on its northern border with Yehudah.
Manachat is reckoned as a man in Genesis 36:23 but a place in 1 Chronicles 8:6. The reason the place is otherwise unknown is because it was not actually called Manachat, but rather Menachot (מנחות), from the root minchah (מנחה) meaning "a gift", particularly the sort offered in sacrifice to a divinity, at "high places". In other words the move from Gev'a to Manachat was simply a relocation of the cultic shrine within the territory of Bin-Yamin; or mythologcally it may reflect the stages and phases of the sacrifical ceremonies.
1 Chronicles 5:15 has an Achi son of Avdi-El, a Gadite of Gilead (written in Yehudit as גלעד, which could as well be pronounced Gal-Ed, "the circle of witness", but is probably correct as Gil'ad, and thus means "a place that is rough or furrowed or hewn or generally gorse-riddled") with whom this Achi or Echi or Echud should not be confused.
My guess is that Echi is a diminutive of Echud, in the way that Benny is of Benjamin and Tommy of Thomas, and if that is correct, Echud means "a joining together" – the number 1 is Echad (אחד), from the same root, and the word Achdut, meaning "Unity", ibid - so presumably the name would have been tribal rather than personal, formed by an alliance, whether through marriage or treaty or both, of two tribes. We can then deduce that this would have been one of the early stories of the Bene Jamun arriving in Kena'an and through intermarriage beginning to assimilate themselves.
However Echud is at most only partially correct - an error that made sufficient sense that it was sustained, especially in the confusion of the Aramaean Bene Jamun becoming suffused into the Egyptian cult of Ben-Oni - or vice versa. But there is also the possibility that Echi was a Yisra-Eli or Kena'ani version of the Egyptian Achu (אחו), meaning "marsh grass" or "reeds" or "bulrushes" (see BIN-YAMIN) which links him to the corn-god who is the central deity of the Benjamite cult: Osiris initially, or Tammuz in Babylonia, now Jesus.
Ach-Yah (אחיה) comes from the same root, and is either a variant form of the same name, or a linking of the Egyptian vegetation god Achu with the Phoenician form of his mother: Eshet (Isis) as Io. Ach-Yah occurs frequently in the Tanach as a priestly name (1 Samuel 14:3; 1 Chronicles 11:36; 1 Kings 4:3 and 15:27; Nehemiah 11:29 and 12:15; and others). Through tribal marriage, the Bene Jamun would have gained the right to surrogate divine children who would later become tribal kings. The name Bela, who appears as father and grandfather, is therefore highly likely to be a variant form of Ba'al (in the way that Deus becomes Dios in Latin, Dieu in French), who as tribal god fathered and grandfathered everybody, but especially the priest-king. For Achu's brothers/sons, see BIN-YAMIN.
Numbers 26:38 ff gives yet another version of the Benjamite tribe. It makes it even more likely that Bela is indeed a variant form of Ba'al, naming him here Ashbel (אשבל). Echi becomes Achi-Ram (אחירם), which is of significance in our understanding of Av-Ram (אברם) as Avi-Ram (אבירם = "father-god"), itself a variant of Sanskrit Brahma.
No other sons are attributed to Bela or Bin-Yamin except Shephupham (שפופם), who must be the Shephuphan (שפפן) of 1 Chronicles 8:5 - the error here may be a result of the post-exilic shift from Hebrew to Aramaic; Hebrew masculine nouns normally end "im" (ים) in the plural; Aramaic ones "in" (ין); also Chupham (חופם) who must be the Chupim (חופם) of Genesis 46 and may well be the Churam (חורם) of 1 Chronicles 8:5; plus Ard and Na'aman who appear as in both other places.
But, just to add one more layer to this, the Yehudit text names him as Shephupham (שְׁפוּפָם) in verse 39, but immediately reduces it to Mishpachat ha Shuphami (מִשְׁפַּחַת הַשּׁוּפָמִי), "the clan of Shupham", with the second Pey removed, and exacerbates the confusion by then associating him/them with Chupam (חוּפָם) of the Mishpachat ha Chupami (מִשְׁפַּחַת הַחוּפָמִי), a variant of the Chupim of Genesis 46.
Texts relating to the tribe of the Bene Jamun (Benjamin) tribe are by far the most confused in the Tanach, with endless variations and repetitions and contradictions of this kind. Partly this is because Bin-Yamin and Ben-Oni have been interconnected - an Aramaean tribe with an Egyptian cult - as a result of their shared focus on a small patch of land. But the tribal area and cult of Bin-Yamin also became the focal-point for centralisation of the whole Beney Yisra-El amphictyony under David, his own royal city being Beit Lechem, his political capital being Yeru-Shala'im, and his temple, which Shelomoh (Solomon) his son actually built, likewise. From the time of King Sha'ul onwards, even though Bin-Yamin later became absorbed into the surviving remnant of Yehudah, this patch of land and its cult became the axis upon which the Yisra-Eli cult turned, and to which everything had ultimately to be attributed.
1 Chronicles 5:15 has an Achi son of Avdi-El, a Gadite of Gilead (written in Yehudit as גלעד, which could as well be pronounced Gal-Ed, "the circle of witness", but is probably correct as Gil'ad, and thus means "a place that is rough or furrowed or hewn or generally gorse-riddled") with whom this Achi or Echi or Echud should not be confused.
My guess is that Echi is a diminutive of Echud, in the way that Benny is of Benjamin and Tommy of Thomas, and if that is correct, Echud means "a joining together" – the number 1 is Echad (אחד), from the same root, and the word Achdut, meaning "Unity", ibid - so presumably the name would have been tribal rather than personal, formed by an alliance, whether through marriage or treaty or both, of two tribes. We can then deduce that this would have been one of the early stories of the Bene Jamun arriving in Kena'an and through intermarriage beginning to assimilate themselves.
However Echud is at most only partially correct - an error that made sufficient sense that it was sustained, especially in the confusion of the Aramaean Bene Jamun becoming suffused into the Egyptian cult of Ben-Oni - or vice versa. But there is also the possibility that Echi was a Yisra-Eli or Kena'ani version of the Egyptian Achu (אחו), meaning "marsh grass" or "reeds" or "bulrushes" (see BIN-YAMIN) which links him to the corn-god who is the central deity of the Benjamite cult: Osiris initially, or Tammuz in Babylonia, now Jesus.
Ach-Yah (אחיה) comes from the same root, and is either a variant form of the same name, or a linking of the Egyptian vegetation god Achu with the Phoenician form of his mother: Eshet (Isis) as Io. Ach-Yah occurs frequently in the Tanach as a priestly name (1 Samuel 14:3; 1 Chronicles 11:36; 1 Kings 4:3 and 15:27; Nehemiah 11:29 and 12:15; and others). Through tribal marriage, the Bene Jamun would have gained the right to surrogate divine children who would later become tribal kings. The name Bela, who appears as father and grandfather, is therefore highly likely to be a variant form of Ba'al (in the way that Deus becomes Dios in Latin, Dieu in French), who as tribal god fathered and grandfathered everybody, but especially the priest-king. For Achu's brothers/sons, see BIN-YAMIN.
Numbers 26:38 ff gives yet another version of the Benjamite tribe. It makes it even more likely that Bela is indeed a variant form of Ba'al, naming him here Ashbel (אשבל). Echi becomes Achi-Ram (אחירם), which is of significance in our understanding of Av-Ram (אברם) as Avi-Ram (אבירם = "father-god"), itself a variant of Sanskrit Brahma.
No other sons are attributed to Bela or Bin-Yamin except Shephupham (שפופם), who must be the Shephuphan (שפפן) of 1 Chronicles 8:5 - the error here may be a result of the post-exilic shift from Hebrew to Aramaic; Hebrew masculine nouns normally end "im" (ים) in the plural; Aramaic ones "in" (ין); also Chupham (חופם) who must be the Chupim (חופם) of Genesis 46 and may well be the Churam (חורם) of 1 Chronicles 8:5; plus Ard and Na'aman who appear as in both other places.
But, just to add one more layer to this, the Yehudit text names him as Shephupham (שְׁפוּפָם) in verse 39, but immediately reduces it to Mishpachat ha Shuphami (מִשְׁפַּחַת הַשּׁוּפָמִי), "the clan of Shupham", with the second Pey removed, and exacerbates the confusion by then associating him/them with Chupam (חוּפָם) of the Mishpachat ha Chupami (מִשְׁפַּחַת הַחוּפָמִי), a variant of the Chupim of Genesis 46.
Texts relating to the tribe of the Bene Jamun (Benjamin) tribe are by far the most confused in the Tanach, with endless variations and repetitions and contradictions of this kind. Partly this is because Bin-Yamin and Ben-Oni have been interconnected - an Aramaean tribe with an Egyptian cult - as a result of their shared focus on a small patch of land. But the tribal area and cult of Bin-Yamin also became the focal-point for centralisation of the whole Beney Yisra-El amphictyony under David, his own royal city being Beit Lechem, his political capital being Yeru-Shala'im, and his temple, which Shelomoh (Solomon) his son actually built, likewise. From the time of King Sha'ul onwards, even though Bin-Yamin later became absorbed into the surviving remnant of Yehudah, this patch of land and its cult became the axis upon which the Yisra-Eli cult turned, and to which everything had ultimately to be attributed.
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