▪ LandbergZetterstéen1942: Sur Hbr
ʕiḇrī = ‘bédouin’, voyez Spiegelberg,
OLZ 1907, col. 618 ss.; sur ʕBR = ʕRB Paul Haupt, “Die Vorfahren der Juden”,
OLZ 12 (1909), col. 163 n. 2: »Der Name Hebräer (
ʕibr für
ʕabĭr) bedeutet (mehr oder weniger unfreiwillig; vgl.
JAOS 16: ci) ‘Umherziehender’ (
OLZ 10: 620;
AJSL 23: 261).
ʕArab (eigentlich ‘das Durchzogene, worin man umherzieht’) ist nur eine Umstellung (
JBL 19: 66;
AJSL 24: 113) dieses Stammes; vgl. äthiop.
ʕabra. Die Jordanspalte heisst
ʕarabâ, weil sie überschritten werden muss. Kein Nomade würde ein Tal mit einem nie versiegenden Fluss als Wüste bezeichnen.«
1
▪ BDB1906 connects the Hbr n.gent.
ʕiḇrī with Sem √ʕBR (Ar ↗
ʕabara ‘to cross’, Hbr
ʕēḇär ‘region across
or beyond, side’): it is »either a. put into the mouth of foreigners (Egypt, and Philist.), or b. used to distinguish Isr. from foreigners (= ‘one from beyond, from the other side’, i.e. prob. [in Hbr trad.] ‘from beyond the Euphrates’ […], but poss. in fact (if name given in Canaan) ‘from beyond the Jordan’«. However,
BDB also mentions the »connexion […] with
Ḫabiri (Tel Am.)«, cf. next paragraph.
▪ Are the
ʕibrîm identical with the
Ḫabiru of the Tell Amarna letters? — »The Ḫabiru-Hebrew parallelism was first suggested by F. J. Chabas in 1862. Soon after the discovery of the Amarna letters in 1887, the dispute over the above equation gained momentum. From the outset, scholars were split into two camps: those defending the identification, who endeavored to combine the two groups and to integrate them into the early history of Israel, and those rejecting it. In the course of time, it became clear that Ḫabiru is an appellative for a certain social element, namely displaced persons who leave their homeland and seek their fortunes in neighboring countries. However, whereas the nature of the Ḫabiru was unanimously recognized, the Ḫabiru-Hebrew equation remained as controversial as ever.«
2
▪ Hoch1994#70: cf. Eg */ʕapīrū/, */ʕapūra/ ? — »The Eg contexts seem to indicate that the term designated social and not ethnic classification. […] Although the etymology is uncertain, the word is known in Akk texts as
ḫabiru, and Ug as
ʕprm. The word is also very likely related to the Biblical term/name
ʕiḇrî ‘Hebrew’, but the nature of the relationship is not easily determined.« [fn. 33:] »Scholars have variously equated, loosely associated, or rejected any connection between the
ʕIbrîm and the
ʕApiru. Loretz, although admitting an etymological derivation from
ʕprw=ʕprm=ḫabiru, considers that all the occurrences of the word in the Bible are as a gentilic, and not as a social term. This is certainly true of the post-exilic usage, but it is possible that in I Sam. 4-29 the word is used in its original sense, although put in the mouths of the Philistines, perh. with a certain degree of contempt. That
ʕApiru groups were still active is shown by the narrative of I Sam. 22-30 where David leads a band of brigands that are all but called
ʕApiru. The later usage as a gentilic may have arisen as a re-interpretation of the term, whose original sense had been forgotten, such social groups having long since disappeared. The view that the I Sam. instances are genuine Biblical examples of
ʕApiru, but that the other examples are the gentilic was also expressed by N. P. Lemche, “‘Hebrew’ as a National Name for Israel”,
Studia Theologica: Scandinavian Journal of Theology, 33 (1979): 1-23.«