Were the Ancient Hebrews the Same as the Habiru?
by Yair Davidiy

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Jonah (1:9) Described Himself as a Hebrew!

Were the Ancient Hebrews the Same as the Habiru?

We interpret the word Hebrew in the Bible as pertaining ONLY to Israelites. There are scholars who claim that originally this word was applied in the Middle East to a social class of outcasts and/or sundry groups at the fringes of society.   It is suggested that somehow these elements coalesced into groups that acquired ethnic characteristics. This gave rise to the Hebrews from whom emerged the Israelites.
This interpretation to our mind derives from a linguistic misunderstanding. Two different word-roots, "IBRI" and ChBR, have been confused.
Before clarifying let us see what is being said:

Wikipedia: Extracts
Hiberu and Apiru

## Habiru or Apiru or pr.w (Egyptian)[1] was the name given by various Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Ugaritic sources (dated, roughly, between 1800 BC and 1100 BC) to a group of people living as nomadic invaders in areas of the Fertile Crescent from Northeastern Mesopotamia and Iran to the borders of Egypt in Canaan.[2] Depending on the source and epoch, these Habiru are variously described as nomadic or semi-nomadic, rebels, outlaws, raiders, mercenaries, and bowmen, servants, slaves, migrant laborers, etc.

The names Habiru and Apiru are used in Akkadian cuneiform texts. The corresponding name in the Egyptian script appears to be pr.w, conventionally pronounced Apiru (W,or u-vowel "quail-chick" being used as the Egyptian plural suffix). In Mesopotamian records they are also identified by the Sumerian logogram SA.KAS (or SA.GAZ), of unknown pronunciation. The name Habiru was also found in the Amarna letters, which again include many names of Canaanite peoples written in Akkadian. etc, etc. ###

We see from the above that Habiru are considered to have been the original Hebrews.
This however depends on an optical illusion. Its convincing points rely on the understanding of  speakers of European tongues who are not familiar with Hebrew.

Habiru and Hebrew are not the same word.
Habiru only sounds like Hebrew when both words are transliterated into English. Habiru is spelt and should be sounded more like Chabiru.
[The "ch" is NOT sounded as in chase but rather as in the scottish "loch" somewhere between an "h" and a "k".]
The word Hebrew (IBRI, Ivri) in the Hebrew language begins with an ayin. It could be transliterated as IBRI, Ebri, Abri, Obri, Ivri. It is however a guttural letter.
Habiru also begins with a guttural letter roughly the equivalent of a "chet".  It has been suggested that since in the Akkadian tongue (a major language of Assyria and Babylon) there is no ayin then they may have used the equivalent of a chet in  its place.

cf. Accadian h may represent other letters than Hebrew H. Meredith Kline.

Habiru may derive from  the root HBR (cHBR): This is pronounced in Modern Hebrew, "chaver". It means friend or member of a union or something similar.
By contrast,
the word IBRI (Hebrew) comes from the root "IBR which could also be pronounced as EBR or ABR or ever OBR.
This means wanderer or other-sider.
#Abraham stood on one side and all the world stood on the other# (Midrash).
It is from the root IBR (ivr) meaning "over" and the English words "over" and "other" may ultimately derive from the same root.

This is different from,
HBR (cHBR) which means friend or member of the union by extension when applied to a social group it could mean "gang, alliance, social class", or even by extended inversion "outsider", or those who are banded together outside of our formal framework or against us.
It may however have later acquired similar connotations to the word Hebrew.

The word for Hebrew and the word for Chaver in Akkadian may have been spelt in the same way and become confused in their applications.
Or it may not. This is a theoretical proposal. No concrete example showing that such was ever the case is known of.

The two words may have been interchangeable in some contexts due to their being spelt the same AND IN SOME CASES having similar applications.
Or they may not.
Personally we would be open to such a notion but that this was ever the case has not been proven.
Even if it did happen (and we do not know that it ever did) that the two words became conflated to the one term it would not mean that they necessarily did so in every case of their occurrence.

It is also worth noting that the word "Chaver" and its plural "chaverim" in the Talmud is used for different specific groups of people and may have negative or positive implications.
It no-where means the same as Hebrew!

On the other side we do have the Egyptian word Apiru which has been interpreted to mean Hebrew and to also have been the equivalent of Habiru.
The oriignal meaning of Apiru in Egyptian is unknown.
Here too the same reservations exist but the Egyptian Apiru does seem to fit the word Hebrew in the sense of inhabitants of the Land of Israel or as slaves prior to the Exodus from Egypt.

It could be that the 19th century European scholars took the fact that Apiru seemed to parallel both Habiru and Hebrew to deduce that Habiru and Hebrew paralleled each other.
Such is not necessarily the case.

From an historical point of view it does not really matter what the origin of the word Hebrew was once we accept the fact that in Biblical Times it had already become synonymous with the word "Ibri" (Ha-Ivri) in the sense of Israelite.
cf.
"I AM AN HEBREW; AND I FEAR THE LORD, THE GOD OF HEAVEN, WHICH HATH MADE THE SEA AND THE DRY LAND" (Jonah 1:9).

Jonah (1:9) Described Himself as a Hebrew!

We later find the appellation Iberi or Habiri (Meaning in the Hebrew tongue, "Hebrews") or derivations of it applied to peoples of Celtic Culture in Europe whom (due to additional proofs) we identify as descended from the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
See:
Biblical Proofs: The Name Hebrew.

Hebrews or Yew Trees??
What Did the Celts Call Themselves?

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Further Study: For a useful academic discussion of the sources (that unfortunately neglects the alternative Chabiru etymology) see: THE HA-BI-RU -KIN OR FOE OF ISRAEL? MEREDITH G. KLINE. THE HA-BI-RU--KIN OR FOE OF ISRAEL? SECOND ARTICLE MEREDITH G. KLINE . THE HA-BI-RU--KIN OR FOE OF ISRAEL? THIRD ARTICLE MEREDITH G. KLINE Quote: p.54 The initial consonant is ambiguous because Accadian h may represent other letters than Hebrew H;205 He also says (but does not prove it): # there can be no doubt that the Ugaritic and Egyptian forms of the name definitely require that the consonant represented in the cuneiform syllable ha be read as 'Ayin.216 # Even if  Kline is correct on this point however it does not mean that everywhere else the same rule holds. The Egyptian and Ugaritic usages are SEPARATE CASES! Ugarit may turn out to have been a Hebrew settlement. Its language was a Hebrew form of Canaanite written in cuneiform text. The use of the term Chabiru (Habiru) in Ugarit merits study in its own right. In general throughout the Middle East, Habiru means member of a group; Ha-ivri (Ibri) means Outsider or Hebrew. Here and there the two concepts may have merged but they were not the same in their orgins and therefore do not necessarily refer to the same peoples!

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