Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

THE GENERATIONS OF TERAH 11:27-52
There can be little doubt, however, that some correla-
tion exists between the name Eber and the word Hebrew,
Eber means “one who passes over.” It is interesting to
note that the name Habiru or HaPiru (“those who cross
over”) is used, apparently, throughout the archeological
archives of the anciegt Near East to designate Semitic
nomads. (Note that the name Arab apparently is a dia-
lectical variant for Eber, and hence may have come to dis-
tinguish the wandering tribes who descended through
Joktan from those who descended through Peleg and who
lived semi-sedentary lives on irrigated lands) , These
Habiru or Hapiru appeared in various parts of the Fertile
Crescent in the second rnillenium B.C. They appeared at
Larsa, Babylon, Mari, Alalakh, Nuzi, Boghazkoy, Ugarit,
and even at Amarna in Egypt. In these records they are
almost uniformly described as restless nomadic people. At
Mari they operated as bands of semi-nomads. In the
Arnarna letters they are portrayed as lawless gangs who
were joined by oppressed urban peoples in attacks on the
established cities. Some hold that the name Habiru may
have designated a social caste rather than an ethnic group.
Be this as it may, the consensus is, overwhelmingly,
that from the eponym Eber came the name Hebrew as
used in the Bible as a patronymic for Abraham and his
seed. In this connection an excellent discussion of the
name Hebrew and its relation to the name Israelite may be
found in Fairbairn’s Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 111, p. 66.
The article is by Duncan H. Weir. It goes substantially
as follows: Herbrew, according to this writer, was a name
of wider import at least in its earlier use, Every Israelite
was a Hebrew, but every Hebrew was not an Israelite.
In Genesis 15:13 Abraham the Hebrew is mentioned along
with Mamre the Amorite. In Gen. 39:14, 40:15, and
41:12 Joseph is spoken of as a Hebrew and the land of
Palestine as the land of the Hebrews. In Gen. 10:21,
Shem is called “the father of all the children of Eber” or
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