the birth (Genesis 29, 32), with a play upon ben and be’onyi, any more than Judah means “I praise Yahweh” (v. 35), though it does contain the divine name (Yehô) as an element. The play on the name may be close or remote, as long as it fulfills its function of suggesting an etymology that is complimentary or appropriate.
In this way, an artificial division and at the same time a distortion of a foreign name like Gilgamesh into several elements, Gish-bil-ga-mesh, is no more violent than, for example, the explanation of Issachar or rather Issaschar as “God has given my hire” (Genesis 30, 18) with a play upon the element sechar, and as though the name were to be divided into Yah (“God”) and sechar (“hire”); or the popular name of Alexander among the Arabs as Zu’l Karnaini, “the possessor of the two horns.” with a suggestion of his conquest of two hemispheres, or what not.[1] The element Gil in Gilgamesh would be regarded as a contraction of Gish-bil or gi-bil, in order to furnish the meaning “father-hero,” or Gil might be looked upon as a variant for Gish, which would give us the “phonetic” form in the Assyrian version dGish-gi-mash,[2] as well as such a variant writing dGish-gi-mas-(si). Now a name like Gilgamesh, upon which we may definitely settle as coming closest to the genuine form, certainly impresses one as foreign, i.e., it is neither Sumerian nor Akkadian; and we have already suggested that the circumstance that the hero of the Epic is portrayed as a conqueror of Erech, and a rather ruthless one at that, points to a tradition of an invasion of the Euphrates Valley as the background for the episode in the first tablet of the series. Now it is significant that many of the names in the “mythical” dynasties, as they appear in Poebel’s list,[3] are likewise foreign, such as Mes-ki-in-ga-še-ir, son of the god Shamash (and the founder of the “mythical” dynasty of Erech of which dGish-bil-ga-mesh is the fifth member),[4] and En-me-ir-kár his son. In a still earlier “mythical” dynasty, we encounter names like Ga-lu-mu-um, Zu-ga-gi-ib, Ar-pi,
- ↑ The designation is variously explained by Arabic writers. See Beidhawi’s Commentary (ed. Fleischer), to Súra 18, 82.
- ↑ The writing Gish-gi-mash as an approach to the pronunciation Gilgamesh would thus represent the beginning of the artificial process which seeks to interpret the first syllable as “hero.”
- ↑ See above, p. 27.
- ↑ Poebel, Historical Texts, p. 115 seq.
