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HAPIRU, APIRU

People designated ha-pí-ru, the syllabic cuneiform spelling of ʿapīru (less likely ʿapiru), appearing in texts from the entire 2nd millennium b.c.e. and throughout the Fertile Crescent. The term is West Semitic in origin. Most attested names of ʿapīru are also West Semitic, but many are East Semitic, Hurrian, or Indo-european. The term is often written in cuneiform with the composite logogram SA.GAZ, which is also used for Akk. ḫabbātu, “robber, pillager, brigand,” and probably derives from Akk. šaggāšu, “killer, outlaw.” Not all ʿapīru were murderous thieves, but in the eyes of court scribes they bore these associations.

The etymology of ʿapīru is uncertain. Most likely it is an adjective related to Heb. ʿāpār, “ground, earth, dirt,” following the form suggested by Heb. pālîṭ and śārîḏ, both “fugitive.” One reasonable suggestion is that the word labels the outlaw as “dusty” from travel, but this is improbable. The paradigm for the ʿapīru, from the full-fledged bandit to the merely displaced, was apparently the outlaw harboring in the highland and desert margins of society, who, in the words of Isa. 2:10, 19 ironically addressed to the ruling class, “enters the fell, hides in the ground . . . enters caves in the fells and holes in the ground ” — exactly like a fox before hounds driven “to earth.” The word ʿapīru probably represents outlaws as those who conceal themselves in holes or burrows, the ones “of the ground” (cf. Ps. 72:9).

Many references to ʿapīru appear to involve social bandits or outlaw gangs. An ʿapīru from Alalakh bore the epithet “thief.” The ʿapīru warriors to whom the 15th-century royal refugee Idrimi fled probably represented a bandit gang. The numerous ʿapīru who figure in the Amarna Letters from 14th-century Syria and Palestine are best understood as social bandits in the service of various kings, even when merely the object of political name-calling. An edict of the 13th-century Hittite king Hattusilis III assured the king of Ugarit that if anyone serving in the court of that king, or anyone from another land owing debt to by that king, should flee to the territory of the ʿapīru, presumably the retreat of bandit gangs, within Hattusilis’ jurisdiction, Hattusilis would undertake to extradite him to Ugarit (RS 17.238).

Taken as a whole, however, it is not banditry as such that most ʿapīru seem to have in common. The term may not have meant the same thing in all times and places, but nearly all ʿapīru mentioned in texts are found in the service of courts, as mercenaries, aides, servants, clients, or captive manual laborers. In personal names, ʿapīru apparently means a “client”: e.g., Apir-baʿl, “Client-of-Baal,” Apir-el, “Client of El.” Furthermore, ʿapīru appear to be displaced persons, uprooted from home and kin, dependent on new masters — apart from the few instances in which they themselves rule. Such features are consistent with the concept of fugitive brigandage, even if not every ʿapīru so designated originated or acted as a bandit. Displacement could affect an individual of any social class and have many possible causes, such as war, famine, debt, simple poverty, limited opportunity, political conflict, or lengthy military service. Some displaced may have migrated and put themselves up for hire individually. Many banded together in squads or gangs (ṣabû, “military host,” appears regularly with ʿapīru, in their roles both as bandits and as court forces), which pillaged and extorted or hired themselves to the highest bidder. Service to a court, which could involve elite military skills, might lead to landholding, as gang members reintegrated themselves into settled society, without always sloughing their ʿapīru label. In other cases, the ʿapīru could be rounded up and sold or otherwise dispatched as laborers.

Since first recognized in the late 19th century, the ʿapīru have been the subject of much debate and disagreement. In general, attempts to see them as a social class, an ethnic group, a tribal group, donkey caravaneers, pastoralists, or nomads have failed. A classic question of biblical scholarship is whether the term “Hebrew” (ʿiḇrî) derives from ʿapīru. For many the question remains unsettled, but most evidence points away from a connection. Although in syllabic cuneiform the term is always written with the BI sign, the Ugaritic and Egyptian writings with p appear to reflect the proper middle consonant, and the cuneiform sign is increasingly read without further ado as pí. Interchange of p and b within West Semitic is not common and within the same language even less so; it appears particularly unlikely in this case because the root ʿbr, “pass by, pass over, transgress,” putatively behind both terms, probably also occurs in Ugaritic, where in any case a shift from b to p is attested only by regressive assimilation to an unvoiced consonant. It has further been pointed out that the consistent preservation of both internal vowels in the reflex ha-pí-ru, if it follows normal Akkadian rules, implies that one of the vowels must be long; if so, since neither such long vowel could have been shortened or elided, ʿapīru could not possibly lie behind ʿibrî.

It occasions some surprise, therefore, that “Hebrew,” which occurs rather seldom in the OT, is almost exclusively used by non-Israelites to refer to Israelites in situations where they could be mistaken for ʿapīru: as refugees by Egyptians in Genesis and Exodus, and as renegades by the Philistines in 1 Samuel. This seeming agreement is apparently a coincidence, in that “Hebrew” derives in all likelihood from the patronym ʿEber, whose name implies a “crossing” from “beyond, over there.”

The bearing of the ʿapīru on the history of early Israel, albeit indirect, goes well beyond an increasingly unlikely connection with the name “Hebrew.” There is no reason to doubt that social dislocation and banditry played a significant role in the emergence of Israel, even if politically early Israel must be defined primarily in terms of tribalism. Social dislocation and tribalism are far from mutually exclusive, and the role of ʿapīru in the Amarna period has shed significant light on conditions attending the emergence of tribal Israel. A further important comparison is with particular Israelites, including Jephthah (Judg. 11:3-6) and especially David, whose career was similar to that of Idrimi and who can fairly, if anachronistically, be called an ʿapīru chief. As freebooters, David and his men hired themselves out as mercenaries or subsisted on plunder. In this regard, the emergence of the kingdom of Judah under David had much in common with that of the kingdom of Amurru under Abdi-ashirta and of Shechem under Labayu in the Amarna period.

Bibliography. G. Buccellati, “ʿApirū and Munnabtūtu — The Stateless of the First Cosmopolitan Age,” JNES 36 (1977): 145-47; M. L. Chaney, “Excursus: The ʿApiru and Social Unrest in the Amarna Letters from Syro-Palestine,” in Palestine in Transition, ed. D. N. Freedman and D. F. Graf (Sheffield, 1983), 72-83; M. Greenberg, ³ab/piru. AOS 39 (New Haven, 1955); R. S. Hess, “Alalakh Studies and the Bible: Obstacle or Contribution?” in Scripture and Other Artifacts, ed. M. D. Coogan, J. C. Exum, and L. E. Stager (Philadelphia, 1994), 199-215; P. K. McCarter, “The Historical David,” Int 40 (1986): 117-29; A. F. Rainey, “Unruly Elements in Late Bronze Canaanite Society,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells, ed. D. P. Wright, D. N. Freedman, and A. Hurvitz (Winona Lake, 1995), 481-96.

Robert B. Coote

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

HAPIRU, APIRU

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)