Eyval (Ebal)

Mt Eyval with Shechem (Nablus) at its foot

עיבל


Genesis 36:23 names him as a son of Shoval (שובל) and grandson of Se'ir the Chorite.

Deuteronomy 11:29 speaks about the curse of Mount Eyval (Ebal in most English renditions), which stands opposite Mount Gerizim in northern Ephrayim. YHVH’s injunction was that the Beney Yisra-El would be rewarded if they obeyed the law and cursed if they did not, the blessing being placed upon Gerizim and the curse upon Eyval - a kind of physical analogy for a dualistic concept of heaven and hell, in which the Beney Yisra-El supposedly do not believe. The important shrine of Shechem lay in the valley between them.

Joshua 8:30 describes Yehoshu'a building a sacrificial altar on the mountain, and reciting the law, in what must be seen as the first major covenant ceremony of the Yisra-Eli epoch in Kena'an.

The name means "void of leaves", and for anyone who has ever visited, it is a most appropriate name.

From the link to Se'ir of the Beney Chor we can presume that the mountain shrine was originally dedicated to the Kena'ani - Canaanite - equivalent of Dionysus, the Greek goat-god; the presence of the goat-god, or at least of mountain-goats, may also explain the absence of foliage from the mountainside!

Is "val" (בל) then a form or variation of Ba'al (בעל)? Answer: probably not - because the Ayin (ע) is missing. But i-Ba'al would also make a splendid description of such an infertile place; not only absent of leaves, but absent of a fructifying god as well. And linguistically it would work. Cf I-zevel (אִיזֶבֶל) in 1 Kings 16:31, which is one of the two forms of Jezebel (Yah-Zevel being the other), and I-chavod (אִיכָבוֹד) in 1 Samuel 4:21.

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