This is disputed by the religious however, because the Wilderness of Shur was the area which the Beney Yisra-El entered immediately after crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 15:22), and that, as the map indicates, was anywhere between fifty and three hundred miles further south. How exactly they would have got there on what is described as an overnight journey is not easy to work out, and why they would have gone that far south, in order to then turn back north, is equally problematic, but as TheBibleNet is not here to dispute faith, I merely present the information, and move on.
Genesis 20:1 confirms that Shur was a town in the wilderness of Gerar, not far from Kadesh, where Avi-Melech took Sarah into his harem, believing her to be the sister not the wife of Av-Raham. The story is re-told twice, once with Av-Raham and Sarah and the Pharaoh of Mitsrayim (Genesis 20:1-18), once with Yitschak and Rivkah and the same Avi-Melech of Gerar. We are in the realm of the sacred marriage of the Great Mother Goddess with the Earth-King.
Genesis 25:18 tells us that Yishma-El and his family went to live "from Chavilah (חוילה) to Shur" after their expulsion by Av-Raham - or by Sarah, actually. The Chavilah referred to here is regarded by the Arabs as being in Arabia (as opposed to the Ethiopian Chavilah mentioned elsewhere), who identify Hagar and Yishma-El with the founding of Mecca, in precisely that area where Chavilah is located. And yet, "from Chavilah to Shur" is 715 miles, which is a very large territory unless you are Bedouin nomads. The reference is particularly interesting however in the light of the following:
1 Samuel 15:7 tells us that Sha'ul smote the Amelekites "from Chavilah unto Shur" - precisely the region where the Beney Yishma-El are supposed to live. Were the two then the same people? If so, there are immensely significant implications, given the scale of enmity from the time of Mosheh onwards. Only Chaman (Haman - the link is not immediately obvious) the Persian is anathematised to the same degree.
1 Samuel 27:8: David fought against the inhabitants of the region of Shur, naming them as Geshuri, Gizri and Amaleki: "for these nations were of old the inhabitants of that land". Which only furthers the problem outlined above: should we be assuming that there was a third town named Chavilah, and that it was in the same coastal region of Mitsrayim between Goshen and the Gaza Strip?
Exodus 15:22, as noted above, gives Midbar Shur (מדבר שור) = "the wilderness of Shur", which Numbers 33:8 calls Midbar Eytam (מדבר איתם) = "the wilderness of Eytam" - and then the problem that there appear to be two places named Eytam, both spelled the same in Yehudit - click here, and then here.
In Chaldean Shur means "a wall" - originally "to put stones in order" - so should we read it, not as the name so much as a signification of its being walled. However the verb Shur in Yehudit means "to lie in wait", so the Davidic reference at least could be to a series of military ambushes rather than a specific place; if so, it would ease the Ishmaelite-Amalekite problem slightly.
But Shur in Yehudit also means "an ox" (cf Hosea 12:12 - Hosea 12:11 in some Christian translations - which has the word in the plural: shevarim - שְׁוָרִים), and with the familiar Sheen-Tav (ש-ת) transposition gives the Latin Taurus, itself of Sanskrit origin. Leviticus 22:27, Job 21:10, Exodus 21:37, Numbers 18:17, Deuteronomy 14:4 all use it as an alternative to Par (פר), and intend specifically the buffalo, and even more specifically the antelope-ox or oryx; elsewhere there is also Bakar (בקר), but this generally means "the herd" rather than the individual beast or beasts. Genesis 36:6 uses it collectively to mean herd, but this is the only occasion.
The plural of Shur is Shevarim (שורים), and given that the original Shofar was an ox-horn - it only became a ram's horn after the Taurus-Aries shift of 2200 BCE - it is not insignificant that of the three principal sets of notes blown on the horn, the common note, the series of short individual blasts, is known as Shevarim (שברים), spelled differently it is true, but in pronunciation identical. Given the nature of the myth, the twin-Tanist aspect especially, Yishma-El's identification with the ox and Yitschak's with the ram makes perfect sense. What is also fascinating is that Shur as a verb also means "to go round", in the sense of making a circuitous, indeed a nomadic, journey. The relevance of this should be obvious.
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