Jabbar al-Malhama

The Quran at the doxology ending sura 59 acclaims God Alone as "al-Jabbâr". Q. 5:22 looks upon the Canaanites as a jabbâr people. The text elsewhere castigates the folk of 'Âd for following every jabbâr Q. 11:59, 26:130. Q. 14:15 and 40:35 (in parallel with sura 59) look back upon jabbârûn before and including Pharaoh. One of Israel accuses Moses of playing the jabbâr Q. 28:19, in 19:14 John is not one, and in 19:32 Jesus denies he is one. The end of sura 50 avers that its qârî is not such a hero(?) over the people.

Meanwhile I see that TheTorah.com is dumping upon us a heap of Emmanuel Tov commentary, including some textual scuffing around Song at the Sea (which I remember as "of the Sea").

In the MT, and presumably in the mouths of Miriam and Moses themselves, YHWH is a man of war (ish malhama). Elsewhere Psalm 24 prefers to hail YHWH a gabur malhama. That reading backwashed into the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is also in the Aramaic Targum and the Syriac, here as emphatic: the gêvra, the ganbura (w-QRBTN' for the song and the psalm both which is, yes, Biblical Aramaic). I find the "גבור המלחמה" also in the apocalyptic War Scroll although the text is a bit corrupt here.

Tov flags Targum's "Samaritan" switch from "man" to "jabbâr" unusual inasmuch as Targum prefers MT; personally I disagree, and consider the Samaritan as inlining midrash into the text itself, as Targum did perhaps-independently. Psalm 24 exists to bind the Psalter's first book (Ps. 3-41), and may be read as an update or even critique to the Song of the Sea.

I have not found Exodus 15 in the Palaestinian-dialect. It went agley from Lewis and Gibson's famous Lectionary. Their supplement reprinted Schulthess, "Christlich-palästinische Fragmente", ZDMG 56, 253-4 (1902) - fragment "IV" for Job; and H. Duensing, Christlich-palästinisch-aramäische Texte (1906) fragment "IX" for Joel, Acts, Romans, and Ephesians along with some Isaiah. Duensing had meanwhile found another MS, of 72 leaves, the writing of which I consider to be Georgian, written from beginning to end on Palestinian texts of the most varied content; which "VII" starts Exodus at 15:7. Christa Kessler (2016) informs us this is the Vatican, sir. (sic) 623 and 627 but, I must report, she also claimed that Exodus 15:1-5 was in the Supplement which it is not. I don't find Exodus 15 in Lewis' Rescript either. As of 2016 Greek "New Finds" "NF_MG 32" claiming 14:24–15:9 was unpublished; M. Black, A Christian Palestinian Horologion was published in 1954 so unavailable to me. Anyway CPA's Torah and Psalter are generally considered a translation from the post-Lucian Septuagint with some Syriac inwash, which may or may not be of use to us.

In Arabic we will be reading much of the [Last] Malhama in apocalyptic: vide Suliman Bashear, "Apocalyptic and Other Materials" ed. JRAS 3.1.2 1991; 173-207. From Hebrew, gabur malhama (especially per 1QM) looks prime to be calqued into Arabic as the Jabbar al-Malhama. If by an Aramaic intermediary, it is not Syriac. This term in full isn't in our Quran, I must note.

The Psalter is possible... but the Quran leads toward a Moses context, as foreshadowed in 'Âd. I cannot rule out the Song of the Sea in an ancient Christian Arabic lectionary.