Esau and Hurrians

The identity of Edom with Hurrian offshoots (19 February, 2015, 30 Shevet, 5775)

Contents:
1. Introduction
2. The Horites Linked to Esau. Wikipedia
3. Who Were the Hurrians?
4. The Hurrians, the Lost Ten Tribes, and Edom
5. The Horites and Israel by John Salverda (adapted from a letter to Yair).
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1. Introduction

We identify Esau with Edomites. We have shown how, as well as having a small enclave to the southeast of Judah, the Edomites ALSO gave rise to scattered groups of importance throughout the Middle East.
We also appear to find Esau joined to the Hurrians. We identify the Hurrians with the Horites of Scripture.
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2. The Horites Linked to Esau. Wikipedia

Horites
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horites
Extracts:

Horites or Horim were a people mentioned in the Torah (Genesis 14:6, 36:20, Deuteronomy 2:12) inhabiting areas around Mount Seir which was in Canaan (Gen. 36:2,5). Mt. Seir seems to have been named after one Seir, who the land of the Horites -"the land of Seir" was named after (Genesis 14:6). He was the ancestor of the Horite chiefs listed in Genesis 36:20f. The Horites have been identified with references in Egyptian inscriptions to Khar (formerly translated as Harri), which concern a southern region of Canaan.

According to Genesis 36, the Horites co-existed and inter-married with the family of Esau, grandson of Abraham through Isaac (Genesis 25:21-25). They were eventually brought under the rule of the descendants of Esau, also then known as Edom.

The ancestry of Seir the Horite is not specified. Pre-Edomite Horite chiefs, descendants of Seir, are listed in Gen. 36:20-29 and 1 Chronicles 1:38-42. One of these chiefs, Zibeon, is also described as a Hivite. Esau's wife Oholibamah was his granddaughter (Oholibamah bat Anah bat Zibeon ben Seir, Gen. 36:2,24,25). Their three sons all became 'chiefs,' although unlike other sons of Esau, they are not called chiefs "in Edom." (compare Gen. 36:16, 17 with 36:18).
The chiefs who descended from Esau are listed in Gen 36:40-43. Two of these chiefs would appear to have been female - Timna and Oholibamah. At some time, certain of these leaders rose to the level of 'kings' over the other chiefs, and the Horite land became known as Edom rather than the land of Seir. One example of these kings is Jobab, son of Zerah, a son of Esau and his wife Basemath, who was Ishamel's daughter (Genesis 36:35). Another is a 'Temanite', Husham (Genesis 36:34), a descendant of Esau's son, Teman (Gen. 36:10,11). None of these kings' sons became kings after their fathers died. Apparently, there was no familial royal line whereby sons of these post-Horite kings succeeded to the throne, but rather, some other system was in place by which kings were either chosen or won the right to rule (Genesis 36:31-29).

By the time governance of these peoples had been consolidated under kings instead of chiefs, Horites are no longer mentioned as such. The land of Seir the Horite had become known as Edom.

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3. Who Were the Hurrians?
The Horites are to identified with the Hurrians..

Hurrians
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrians
The Hurrians spoke a Hurro-Urartian language called Hurrian, and lived in Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia. The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the multi-ethnic kingdom of Mitanni, the Mitanni perhaps being Indo-European speakers who formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. The population of the Indo-European-speaking Hittite Empire in Anatolia included a large population of Hurrians, and there is significant Hurrian influence in Hittite mythology. By the Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples, except perhaps in the kingdom of Urartu. According to a hypothesis by I.M. Diakonoff and S. Starostin, the Hurrian and Urartian languages are related to the Northeast Caucasian languages.

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4. The Hurrians and Edom

The Hurrians are believed to have been in the areas to the north of Israel for a long time. They were scattered all over but concentrated at first in the region of the Habor River (Gozan) and then later in the neighboring Kingdom of Urartu otherwise known as Ararat in the approximate region of Armenia.
We found Teman of Edom as the Temenu who had a center in Gozan in northern Syria on the Khabor River. This was also the area of the Mitanni of "Indo European" culture.
See:
Nations of Esau in Ancient Times
http://www.britam.org/Edom/EsauAncientNations.html
Here too there an actual area known as "Land of Edom".
cf.

"THE ARAB FRINGE. AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING Musri, KUSH, MELUHHA AND MAGAN"
by Banyai Michael, Stuttgart
# On the East bank of the Chabur River was Kadmuhhi (Kedem, east) formerly known as Idamaraz (maybe Idam Araz = sem. Land), i.e. Land of Edom. Biblical, Utz or Uz, identified as belonging to both Edom and Aram. #

The Temenu of Edom in Gozan in northern Syria were the same entity as the neighboring Tummana in northern Turkey.
This region adjoined Urartu otherwise known as Ararat and Armenia. Here too we find Edomites.

Lamentations 4:
21 REJOICE AND BE GLAD, O DAUGHTER OF EDOM, THAT DWELLEST IN THE LAND OF UZ.
Midrash: DAUGHTER OF EDOM is Caesaria, IN THE LAND OF UZ is Persia.
Targum Yehonatan (Aramaic Translation): "IN THE LAND OF UZ is Armenia".
There is no difference between the Midrash and Yehonatan since the Kingdom of Persia would often extend its domain into Armenia in North Syria.
See:
Edom and UZ in Armenia
http://www.britam.org/Questions/QuesEdom.html#Studies

We thus find Hurrians (Horites) in the same areas as Edom both in the south and in the north.
Urartu (meaning Land of Uz of Edom) was a region to which the Ten Tribes were exiled as was Gozan.
Edom had ruled over this region and apparently co-operated with the Assyrians in re-settling captive populations including those of Israel.
The Phoenicians of Tyre and the Philistines were condemned by Amos [Amos 1:6, 9] for delivering up Israelite Captives to Edom.
We have explained this as the forced transportation by sea and resettlement of Israelite captives in Minoan (Philistine) and Phoenician colonies in the west.
It may also be linked to resettlement in the area of Urartu.
The Cimmerians with whom we identify the Lost Ten Tribes first emerged from Mannae in conflict with Urartu. The Cimmerians are otherwise known as Gomer.
It is interesting that John Salverda (in a letter to Yair) suggested a link between Kumarbi (who was the chief god of the Hurrians) and Gomer. This is quite feasible since in that region the letters "K" and G" often interchanged.

The upshot is that the role of Edom in the Exile of the Ten Tribes and the continued involvement of Edom in their history needs to be kept in mind.

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5. The Horites and Israel by John Salverda (adapted from a letter to Yair).

The Hittites adopted Horite, well, Hurrian gods (they are sometimes called "Hurro-Hittite" http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/hittite-ref.html
Kumarbi, Teshub, and Hebat (often supposed to be an adaptation of "Eve") are all thought to be "borrowed" by the Hittites from these "Hurrians." But it is from the study of "Hittite Mythology" that we learned of them (The Hittites also had Anu, Enki, Ishtar, Hadad and Baal). It is a widespread notion that the Hurrians were the Horites (there are some dissenters). They were quite an interesting group ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrians ). Their language was "Urartian" (from the mountains of Ararat, where Noah and his family lived); they had split off from the "Chaldians of Urartu" (Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in Syria. It is generally believed that the speakers of this language originally came from the Armenian Highlands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrian_language
They moved down into the area of Syria (Paddan-Aram, around the cities of Haran and Nahor, which are both of Hurrian foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haran_%28biblical_place%29

The Hyksos also included Hurrians ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos ).
Then, if they really are the Horites, they settled all over the promised land including Jerusalem which is also said to be of Hurrian foundation http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10031.html .

While the Israelites may have been quite keen to distinguish themselves from the Horites in the Scriptures. The Hittites don't seem to have made such a distinction. The so-called Mitanni, who were certainly Hurrians (they spoke Hurrian), were probably the Scriptural Midianites. They married into the family of Moses and ruled in Shechem for a while and so maybe the Hittites just lumped them altogether as one people, from whom they got their "Hurrian" gods (who were actually just Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs, and individual attributes of their G-d).

I'll tell you Yair, I do not trust the secular historians. They cobble together bits and scraps of mutilated chronicles from disparate sources all over the Near East, the Hittites, Ugarit , Mari, the Egyptians, and Babylon, taking any of the slightest hints they find and, blithely sew it into the fabric of their historical assumption, as if it were absolute evidence. While they stumble and trip, doubt and balk, over anything that they suspect may originate with the fairly complete Scriptural sources. They disbelieve that there ever was any such "United Kingdom" of King David, while they are certain that such a kingdom did exist under the Hurrians, Then ruled by Mitanni, then taken over by the 18th Dynasty Egyptians, It is as if anybody but the Israelites could have stretched themselves from the Nile to the Euphrates!

Why, the most that they will admit is small, dependent, Hebrew Kingdoms from the days of Mesha of Moab, onward, and if it weren't for the records from Sargonid kings of the New Assyrian dynasty, they would not even admit the existence of these Israelites.