Meaning of HEBREW

"that comes from the other side, that crosses." According to biblical history, the Hebrews came from the eastern bank of the Euphrates (cf. Gen. 12:5 with Gen. 14:13; Josh. 24:2, 3).

His name may have meant this or may have originally been a patronymic form derived from Eber, and designating all his descendants, including the Israelites (Gen. 10:21), until the latter acquired such importance that the Hebrew term came to apply exclusively to the Israelites. (See HEBER.)

The opinion is frequently expressed that the Hebrew term "'ibrî" (Hebrew) should be identified with the Akkadian "hapiru" or "habiru" (pl. "habirû") which appears in cuneiform terms throughout the Middle East and various epochs. This term also appears in the Egyptian language in the form "'apiru."

According to these inscriptions, the "habirû" were foreigners, in search of adventure. In Babylon, they were mercenaries; To survive, they rented their services to the Hurrians of Nuzu (Nuzi), which became a true servitude.

It is not evident in the inscriptions that "habirû" has an ethnic meaning. According to the letters from Tell el-Amarna, Abdi-Hiba of Jerusalem made desperate calls to the king of Egypt when bands of Habirû were marauding in Palestine.

This episode has been identified with the conquest of Canaan under the direction of Joshua. However, the characteristics of the «'apiru» or «habirû» do not coincide with those of the Hebrews; A close examination of the Tell el-Amarna letters has led a large number of scholars, contrary to the identification popularized in many books, to the conclusion that the Tell el-Amarna letters do not speak of any formal invasion.

The "'apiru" would be citizens of certain city-states, and the area involved included territories far north of Palestine, which were not included in the territory conquered by the Israelites. The difficulties described in the letters have led most scholars to the conviction that they were groups of foreign mercenaries who placed themselves at the service of any local king who wanted to expand his territories at the expense of weaker neighbors.

These letters, addressed to the pharaoh for help, and which received no response, were evidently written in a period of decline of Egyptian power, and chronologically both Courville and Velikovsky argue in a documented way against the identification "'apiru" = Hebrews, and in favor of its assignment to the 8th century BC. in the context of the revision of the general chronology of Egyptian history (see AMARNA, EGYPT, and the Bibliographies corresponding to said articles).

The plural name "Hebrews" is applied to the Israelites (Gen. 40:15; 1 Sam. 4:6; 13:3; 2 Cor. 11:22). In NT times, Jews who spoke Hebrew or even Aramaic gave this name to themselves, as opposed to their Greek-speaking coreligionists, the Hellenists (Acts 6:1). The expression “Hebrew of Hebrews” means that all the ancestors, both paternal and maternal, were Hebrews (Phil. 3:5).