‘Hebrews’ is unsatisfactory, though it is often necessary to use it, for the term Habiru, from which it presumably derives, described more a way of life than a specific racial group. Moreover, it was pejorative. ‘Hebrew’ does indeed occur in the Pentateuch, meaning ‘the children of Israel’, but only when used by the Egyptians or by the Israelites themselves in the presence of Egyptians. From about the second century BC, when it was so used by Ben Sira, ‘Hebrew’ was applied to the language of the Bible, and to all subsequent works written in this language. As such it gradually lost its
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