The Ḫa-BI-ru—Kin Or Foe Of Israel? Second Article -- By: Meredith G. Kline
NET Bible Tagger issues
Attention: If you are experiencing issues with verses not being displayed in the pop-up window, please clear your browser cache. For desktop and laptop users, this can usually be accomplished by holding the shift key down on your keyboard while clicking the refresh icon on your browser's toolbar. Mobile users will need to find instructions for your specific phone and browser combination. Thank you.
Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 19:2 (May 1957)
Article: The Ḫa-BI-ru—Kin Or Foe Of Israel? Second Article
Author: Meredith G. Kline
WTJ 19:2 (May 57) p. 170
The Ḫa-BI-ru—Kin Or Foe Of Israel?
Second Article
C. An Ethno-Professional Interpretation.
It has appeared that the currently dominant identifications of the ḫa-BI-ru as a social class of one sort or another are inadequate. They fail to discover a common denominator for all the ḫa-BI-ru (and the ḫa-BI-ru alone) that will satisfy all the known documents. The investigation must turn to other possibilities. Was ethnic unity the peculiar stamp of the ḫa-BI-ru? Was their hallmark the practice of a particular profession?
1. Ethnic Unity. Examination of the morphological data led to the conclusion that the variety of forms found for the word ḫa-BI-ru is most readily explained in terms of variations of the proper name for an ethnic group.113
Other features point in this same direction:
There are indications of family relationships among the ḫa-BI-ru114 and of self-contained communities or tribal organization in the ḫa-BI-ru pattern of life.115
The word ḫa-BI-ru is used in contrast to particular ethnic terms and, therefore, as at least the equivalent of an ethnic term itself. Repeatedly in Hittite rituals and treaties the ḫa-BI-ru are paired with the Lulahhu (the people of Lullu). In one ritual116 this pair appears in a list of social classes,
WTJ 19:2 (May 57) p. 171
suggesting that “the Lulahhu and the ḫa-BI-ru” had become a cliché among the Hittites for the social category of foreigners.117 Such usage, however, would be only local and secondary in the case of the ḫa-BI-ru as it obviously must be in the case of the Lulahhu. As a matter of fact, once it has been established that the ḫa-BI-ru cannot successfully be identified as a social class, all evidence that they were regarded in particular areas as one specific group of foreigners118 becomes so much support for the interpretation of them as a specific ethnic entity.
Certain Egyptian texts also mention
Click here to subscribe