Father of greatness

We had some Second Isaiah at Mass this morn. I see that TheTorah.com is on a similar case: Cyrus grandson of Cyrus of Anshan, setting up the province Ebernari.

I dealt with this awhile ago, on Abraham bending down to kiss the rod of Bera, as it were. The common enemy to Canaan was the lord of Abraham's old home beyond the Aramaean Euphrates: the lord of Elam.

TheTorah is focusing on Abraham's other name - Abram. Both names may be folk-etymologies of the same name "Abraham". 'BRHM is, it seems, not Hebrew. Everyone figured that 'B was your Semitic ab, "father"; but what's RHM?

In one tradition, it used to be ram. This may have to do with the man's origins in the Mesopotamia, whence the greatest Semitic-speaking empires (Egypt wasn't Semitic, didn't count). Isaiah had somewhat-consistently deemed the Assyrians, especially, as ram - against Judah's god, who would oversee the fall of Ashur. In the other tradition RHM is (somehow) related to hamon, a multitude. A third wordplay involves [2] Isaiah 51:2, וְאַרְבֵּהוּ, which seems innocent of both. It all looks like Ezekiel 33:25f, a direct reaction to the present inhabitants of the Land who scoff, at Abraham's children: וַאֲנַחְנוּ רַבִּים. (Ezekiel was at heart a Babylonian.)

Mark Brett has an idea: Abram was the father of a great nation. First, YHWH grants Shechem(!) to Abram. Then, YHWH assigned Abram to reign from river to river (much noted by Unzpoasters). The Persian satrap happened to own that territory. Abram looks, to me, like YHWH's khšaçapâvâ: some founder of the Samaritian nationstate. It is this people who say וַאֲנַחְנוּ רַבִּים.

Abraham on the other hand - Ezekiel's ancestor - rules only his own people. His portion is to be a patriarch but biding his time until his progeny can expand. For Genesis his rights come out of resistance to Elam-dominated Mesopotamia, which resistance was clustered around the Salt Sea plain. I can't help but suspect that the arm of "Elam", there and then, was locally-based somewhere closer. Maybe... Shechem.

Both accounts are set in early Genesis, back when Tall Hammam was still standing, which everyone knew was before the Pharaohs (accurately, it turns out).