Cuneiform of Sumerian SA.GAZ and corresponding West Semitic ha-bi-ru

ʿApiru (Ugaritic: 𐎓𐎔𐎗𐎎, romanized: ʿPRM, Ancient Egyptian: 𓂝𓊪𓂋𓅱𓀀𓏥, romanized: ʿprw), also known in the Akkadian version Ḫabiru (sometimes written Habiru, Ḫapiru or Hapiru; Akkadian: 𒄩𒁉𒊒, ḫa-bi-ru or *ʿaperu) is a term used in 2nd-millennium BCE texts throughout the Fertile Crescent for a social status of people who were variously described as rebels, outlaws, raiders, mercenaries, bowmen, servants, slaves, and laborers.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

Etymology

ꜥpr.w[7] in hieroglyphs

The term was first discovered in its Akkadian version "ḫa-bi-ru" or "ḫa-pi-ru". Due to later findings in Ugaritic and Egyptian which used the consonants ʿ, p and r, and in light of the well-established sound change from Northwest Semitic ʿ to Akkadian ḫ,^[8] the root of this term is proven to be ʿ-p-r.^{[9][10][6][11][12]} This root means "dust, dirt", and links to the characterization of the ʿApiru as nomads, mercenaries, people who are not part of the cultural society.^[6][11] The morphological pattern of the word is qatilu,^[10] which point to a status, condition.^[6]

Hapiru, Habiru, and Apiru

In the time of Rim-Sin I (1822 BCE to 1763 BCE), the Sumerians knew a group of Aramaean nomads living in southern Mesopotamia as SA.GAZ, which meant "trespassers".^[14] The later Akkadians inherited the term, which was rendered as the calque Habiru, properly ʿApiru. The term occurs in hundreds of 2nd millennium BCE documents covering a 600-year period from the 18th to the 12th centuries BCE and found at sites ranging from Egypt, Canaan and Syria, to Nuzi (near Kirkuk in northern Iraq) and Anatolia (Turkey).^[15][16]

Idrimi of Alalakh

Not all Habiru were murderers and robbers:^[17] in the 18th century BCE a north Syrian king named Irkabtum (c. 1740 BCE) "made peace with [the warlord] Shemuba and his Habiru,"^[18] while the ʿApiru, Idrimi of Alalakh, was the son of a deposed king, and formed a band of ʿApiru to make himself king of Alalakh.^[19] What Idrimi shared with the other ʿApiru was membership of an inferior social class of outlaws, mercenaries, and slaves leading a marginal and sometimes lawless existence on the fringes of settled society.^[20] ʿApiru had no common ethnic affiliations and no common language, their personal names being most frequently West Semitic, but also East Semitic, Hurrian or Indo-European.^[20][21]

Areas of reported Habiru activity during the Late Bronze IIA period (based on the Amarna letters corpus)

The spelling of singular ꜥApiru in "The Conquest of Joppa" tale[22] in hieroglyphs

In the Amarna letters from the 14th century BCE, the petty kings of Canaan describe them sometimes as outlaws, sometimes as mercenaries, sometimes as day-labourers and servants.^[3] Usually they are socially marginal, but Rib-Hadda of Byblos calls Abdi-Ashirta of Amurru (modern Lebanon) and his son ʿApiru, with the implication that they have rebelled against their common overlord, the Pharaoh.^[3] In "The Conquest of Joppa" (modern Jaffa), an Egyptian work of historical fiction from around 1440 BCE, they appear as brigands, and General Djehuty asks at one point that his horses be taken inside the city lest they be stolen by a passing ʿApir.^[23]

Habiru and the biblical Hebrews

Except for its first appearance (Gen. 14:13), the biblical word "Hebrew", can be interpreted as a social category.^[24] Since the discovery of the 2nd millennium BCE inscriptions mentioning the Habiru, there have been many theories linking these to the Hebrews of the Bible;^[14] Most of which were based on the supposed etymological link and were widely denied following the Ugaritic and Egyptian discoveries.^[6][11][12]

As pointed out by Moore and Kelle, while the ʿApiru/Ḫabiru may be related to the biblical Hebrews, they also appear to be composed of many different peoples, including nomadic Shasu and Shutu, the biblical Midianites, Kenites, and Amalekites, as well as displaced peasants and pastoralists.^[25][26]

Scholars such as Anson Rainey have noted, however, that while ʿApiru covered the regions from Nuzi to Anatolia as well as Northern Syria, Canaan and Egypt, they were distinguished from Shutu (Sutu) or Shasu (Shosu), Syrian pastoral nomads in the Amarna letters or other texts of the time.^[27] The morphological pattern of the word ʿApiru is, as mentioned above, qatilu, which point a status, as oppose to the morphological pattern of the term עִבְרִי (Hebrew) which is based on nisba (like מִצְרִי – Egyptian).^[6] The ʿApiru were ethnically diverse, and hence this term is completely disconected from the term "Hebrew", in both etymology and meaning.^[28] Professor Albert D. Friedberg concurs, arguing that Habiru refers to a social class found in every ancient Near Eastern society. ^[29]

See also

• Ahlamu
• Foreign relations of Egypt during the Amarna period
• Beisan steles
• Eber

References