Put

פות


Genesis 10:6 names him as one of the sons of Cham (Ham), alongside Kush (Ethiopia), Mitsrayim (Egypt) and Kena'an (Canaan). It probably means the Mauretanians (cf Josephus: Antiquities 1), who inhabited North Africa to the west of Libya, though both the Septuagint and Vulgate texts treat it as Libya itself. Pliny the Elder in his Natural History mentions a river Put in Mauretania.

The name does however cause us some problem, for Potiphar (פוטיפר), the name of the man who purchased Yoseph upon his arrival in Mitsrayim (Genesis 39:1), and Poti-Phera (פוטי פרע - Genesis 41:45), Yoseph's father-in-law, are both etymologically linked to Put. Phera (פרע) or Phar (פר) in its abbreviated form, means "prince", and is more familiar as the name of the king of Egypt, Pharaoh (פרעה). Potiphar is usually translated, as Phichol is elsewhere, as "captain of the royal guard" (Genesis 39:1); but this is erroneous. Genesis 41:45 and 46:20 make clear that he was the priest of On, or Heliopolis, the central shrine of sun-worship in Mitsrayim.

Poti-Phera ought, therefore, etymologically, mean "prince of Put" or "prince of Mauretania". But this appears to make no sense at all in the context. Is Put then something other than a place? More scholarship required, please, you experts! It may help to note that, to the Greeks, Put was Patros, which they reckoned to be Upper Egypt - for which see my notes to PATRUSIM.

It might also be worth thinking through the oddity of the connection between Put as an Egyptian word, and the same root in Yehudit - PATAR means "to solve", and is used in the Yoseph tale explicitly to mean "to read dreams""

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