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October 13, 2007
Phoenician Names with ZBL
Zbl is an element in the Biblical name Jezebel and the letter string also occurs as part of a name on a much-discussed seal. If you are interested in this seal, Christopher Rollston's discussions along with those of Chris Heard are great places to start. You can also read Marjo Korpel's paper, "Seals of Jezebel and other women of authority." But please don't stop with her paper.
Other than the name Jezebel and the name on the seal, I have been able to find only two Phoenician names that contain zbl as an element. Rollston mentioned both names in one of his discussions of the yzbl seal. I thought I'd take a little closer look at these two names.
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שמזבל occurs in KAI 34:4. KAI 34 is grave inscription from Kition on Cyprus. Donner and Röllig date it in the 4th to 3rd century BCE range. I translate the text (following Donner and Röllig),
This is the grave stele that ʾRŠ, the chief agent, erected for his father, PRSY, the chief agent, son of ʾRŠ, the chief agent, son of MNḤM, the chief agent, son of MŠL, the chief agent, son of PRSY, the chief agent; and for his mother, ŠMZBL, daughter of the BʿLRM, son of the MLKYTN, son ʿZR, chief of the supervisions(?), on their eternity resting place.
In this text ŠMZBL is the name of a women, the mother of ʾRŠ and the daughter of BʿLRM. There are a couple of choices for the meaning of the name: "There is Zebul" or "The Name of Zebul." I guess I prefer the first choice. You will see why in a while.
בעלאזבל occurs in KAI 67:1. This text is better called Punic than Phoenician. It is from Tharros on Sardinia. The date is uncertain. Again my translation,
Grave of BʿLʾZBL, wife of ʿZRBʿL, son of MQM.
BʿL'ZBL is also a women. Because of the aleph between BʿL and ZBL, it's not completely clear what with name means. With out the aleph one might think in terms of "Ba'al is Zebul" or "Ba'al is Prince." Perhaps the aleph stands for the definite article (it is sometimes written that way in Punic), in which case we would understand the name as "Ba'al is the Prince."
Both names are of women. But not much can be made of this, the sample set is very small indeed. I don't think one can say much about the name Jezabel on the basis of these other two names. If Jezabel is indeed the name of a real person, then we know of three feminine names with zbl and nothing much else. On the other hand, if it is a name contrived for literary purposes one might conclude that whoever contrived it knew that such names were feminine. But then, maybe not.
Please remember that this is a blog and I am an amateur and that what I am about to say may be nothing more than what you would expect from a blog ran by an amateur. If I compare the name ʾYZBL (Jezabel) with ŠMZBL in KAI 34:4, I see something abnormally interesting. One way of understanding 'YZBL is "Where is Zebul?" or "Where is the prince." and one way of understanding ŠMZBL is "There is Zebul" or "There is the prince." If ŠMZBL was a common Phoenician feminine name, and there is no particular reason to think that it was, and if ŠMZBL was Jezabel's real name, and there is no reason to think that, then the name Jezabel may be a slam on both her and her god. Again, please take this with a major grain of salt. There is no supporting evidence beyond the two names themselves for this idea. In addition, if Jezebel lived in the 9th century BCE and the only attested reference to the name ŠMZBL is on a 4th of 3rd century stele, there is a very large time gap to bridge for meaningful comparison. But it is fun to think about.
Does anything in this post inform the questions surrounding the yzbl seal? No, not much, if anything.
Posted by Duane Smith at October 13, 2007 10:46 AM | Read more on Hebrew Bible |
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