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Chapter 4 : Linguisic Links-What's in a Name? |
W
hat can we learn from names? What we call ourselves defines for others who we are.
We're also defined by the labels others apply to us (whether factual or fabricated),
the name of the land in which we live or were born and the name of the land of our
ancestry. We must consider names and labels as we attempt to trace the people of
Israel through history.
Our English Bibles sometimes call the people of Israel the sons of Isaac. God
promised that the name of Isaac would continue to identify Israel as a people (Genesis 21:12).
In biblical times the Hebrew language was written with no vowels. Thus Isaac
would have been spelled simply Sk or Sc in the English equivalents
of the Hebrew characters. We should not consider it astonishing that shortly after
the exile of the 10 tribes the term SaCae (the letters for the name Isaac
with the Latin plural ending "ae") identified the new settlers in the Black
Sea region of Scythia. The Assyrians similarly spoke of the emergence of the iShKuza
and the Persian-Medians of the SaKa, both derivations of the name Isaac. (We
have capitalized the S, C and K in these examples to help you see their
derivations.)
The Behistun Rock, a mural carved in stone near present-day Bisitun, Iran, provides
linguistic clues to the understanding of several ancient languages.
The rock relief dates from the reign of Darius I of Persia (ca. 522-486 B.C.). Its
depiction of conquered foreign kings paying homage was inscribed in the Old Persian,
Elamite (Susian) and Babylonian languages. One sees Skuka, king of the temporarily
subjugated Asiatic branch of Scythians, pictured as the last one in line. The Behistun
Rock describes him as the king of the Scythians, Saka or Cimmerians
(pronounced "Gimiri" in Babylonian).
The Greek historian Herodotus (484-420 B.C.) wrote that the Persians called Scythians
"Sacae." Later the Greek writer Ptolemy (A.D. second century) referred
to the Sacae as "Saxones." These terms were often used synonymously.
British historian Sharon Turner tells us: "The Saxons (who migrated to the British
Isles) were a ... Scythian tribe; and of the various Scythian nations ... the Sakai,
or Sacae, are the people from whom the descent of the Saxons may be inferred, with
the least violation of probability. Sakai-Suna or the sons of the Sakai, abbreviated
into Saksun, which is the same sound as Saxon, seems a reasonable etymology of the
word Saxon" (The History of the Anglo-Saxons, Vol. 1, 1840, p. 59).
What is the origin of the name Cimmerian? The Assyrian conquerors of the northern
10 tribes called them Bit Khumri (or Ghomri), meaning the House
of Omri. Omri was one of the most militarily successful kings of the kingdom
of Israel; he founded his own dynasty of kings. Inscriptions of the time refer to
the Israelite kingdom as the land or house of Omri. In Greek we find the forms Kimmerii,
Kimmeroi and Cymry and, in Latin, Kimbri, Kymbrians and Cimbres
as the equivalents of the Assyrian Khumri.
Later history records the migration to Europe of Celtic tribes bearing these
names, some into Jutland and others into Gaul. The Gauls called themselves
Kymris, but the Romans labeled them Celts, Galli, Gallus and Galates
(Galatians).
The Hellenistic and Roman conquerors (300 B.C.-A.D. 200) renamed the area of Gilead,
once home of the exiled Israelite tribes of Gad, Reuben and half of Manasseh,
Gaulanitis.
Curiously, the term Gaul, whether gallo or gallus in Latin,
galler or waller in Celtic, waller or walah in German or
gaullois in French, seems to carry the same meaning: "stranger, traveler
or exile." To the Celts the words Gael and Scythe both meant "stranger"
or "traveler." God had told the 10 tribes of Israel they would become
wanderers (Hosea 9:17).
When we understand that the Hebrew for "carried captive," as used in describing
the Assyrian deportation of the Israelites out of Gilead into exile, is the word
galah and its modern derivatives are galut, galo or gallo, we have
come full circle. This linguistic journey ties together a few of the many labels
applied to the exiled 10 tribes as the "House of Omri" and the "Sons
of Isaac."
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