D
D(DEUTERONOMIST) The
designation of one of the Pentateuch's principal
literary sources. The Deuteronomist was this source's editor or compiler,
which is roughly the same as the book of Deuteronomy.
DABBESHETH (דבשת, hump) A border town in Zebulun. Its exact location
is unknown; it is probably
to be identified with a site of Jokneam.
DABERATH (דברת, pasture) A Levitical town in Issachar, located at
what is
now Deburiyeh west of Mount Tabor
Issachar and Zebulun.
DAGON
(דגון, corn, large fish) A
god associated with the Philistines in Gaza
& in Ashdod
ark after its capture. The Dagon cult is mentioned by the Near Eastern
Semites long before the
Philistine invasion, perhaps as early as 2000 B.C.
Baal
is termed the “Dagon’s son.” Dagon’s
name is almost certainly
connected with the Semitic noun for corn. His function as a vegetation-god,
appears to
have been transferred to Baal by 1500 B.C. He is listed after El
& Baal in the existing god list, which don't
give any indication of the god’s
or the cult’s nature. Dagon’s association with a fish goes back to
400 A.D.,
and reflects popular belief as to the source of the word that is
unsupported
by any facts.
DALETH (ד) The fourth
letter of the Hebrew alphabet, according to the King
James Version at the head
of the 4th section of the acrostic psalm, Psalm
119; each verse of this
section of the psalm begins with this letter.
DALMANUTHA (Dalmanouqa) A
place of uncertain location along the
western shore of the Sea of Galilee . Following the
feeding of the 4,000,
Jesus embarked with his disciples & crossed to the “district
of Dalmanutha”
(Mark 8). In Matthew 15,
the same story is found, but Magdala is the desti-
nation, rather than
Dalmanutha. The only reference to this
place that has
survived is in Mark.
over Illyria the Romans found the Dalmatians among their most
stubborn
opponents. Rome's first contact
with them was in 157/156 B.C. In 50 and
48 B.C. Caesar's & Gabinius' armies were defeated; by 33 B.C., Octavian
completed a subjugation of the Dalmatians which required several years.
Again in 6-8 A.D. a Dalmatian revolt, led by
a certain Bato, was put down
by Tiberius.
DALPHON (דלפון, weeper) One of the ten sons of Haman who were put
to
death by the Jews. (Esther 9).
DAMARIS (DamariV) A woman of Athens
the Areopagus and
believed.
DAMASCENE The
region of Damascus
caused by the
River Barada.
DAMASCUS (דמשק (dah ma sak)) A Syrian city, situated under Anti-Leba-
non’s eastern
slopes, with Mount Hermon in the southwest. The Damas-
cus region is an oasis watered by a system of rivers & canals. Damascus
itself is situated on
the Nahr Barada. Damascus has always
played an im-
portant role as a commerce and religious center. Damascus is mentioned
several times in the
Old Testament. It is also mentioned in a
Thut-mose
III’s (1500s B.C.) inscription. In the early periods there were several settle-
ment centers; it isn't
certain that the present town was the main center. In
ancient times, Damascus had to defend
against enemies coming from the
East and South to invade the valley. There are several sites of large towns
and fortified positions, of which only big mounds remain.
D-1
In
the mid-1300s B.C., Damascus was the center of an important
Amorite kingdom,
whose ruler seems to have played a leading role in the
efforts to get rid of
the Egyptian domination. Near 1000 B.C.,
Damascus
was the capital of the important Aramean kingdom, which was able to
compete with Assyrians.
In the beginning of the 900s, David was
victorious in his war
against Damascus & made it tributary. During Solomon’s
reign, Damas-
cus was conquered by Reson of Aram-Zobah, who became independent
of
Israel. Tabrimmon of Damascus was the
ally of Abijam of Judah
(southern Israel) against (northern) Israel. His son Ben-hadad I (900-
875) was allied to
Baasha of Israel, but made a league with Asa of Judah.
There was more than one ruler with the
Ben-hadad name, but scholars
are not in agreement as to how many there were
over 100 years. A Ben-
hadad made war against Israel’s King Ahab, who was killed
at Ramoth-
gilead in 853. The last
Ben-hadad was victorious over Israel, conquering
almost all of Israel, and
besieging Samaria.
In
the meantime, Damascus had to fight also against Assyria, if
the kingdom of
Damascus was to keep its position of power.
In the Syro-
Ephraimite War of 734, Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel
made
war against Ahaz of Judah. Ahaz
appealed to Assyria under Tiglath-
pileser, who conquered Damascus and killed
Rezin in the year 733/32.
Because of
these events, Damascus lost its position as the capital of a
flourishing
kingdom and after that was merely the center of a province.
The Babylonians, the Persians, & finally
Alexander conquered the
town. Through
Roman policy, Damascus became the capital of an inde-
pendent Nabatean kingdom in
85 B.C. When Paul came to Damascus, it
was ruled by Aretas IV. During the
development of the following centu-
ries, the population of Damascus was
Christianized.
community. It flourished in Jesus' time & belonged to the Essenes.
DAMN, DAMNABLE, DAMNATION (See Condemnation)
DAN
(דן,
(God) judges) 1. The fifth son of Jacob, who is credited
with
founding the tribe of Dan. Born of
Rachel's personal maid Bilhah, Dan
was the full brother of Naphtali.
Dan's
inferior reputation as half-caste, and his special relationship
to Rachel is
explained in the tribe's history.
Dan attempted to establish
themselves in the Shephelah of western Israel
The inhabitants there not only didn't permit
them to come down into the
plain, but forced them up into the mountains. In the time of judges, and
more specifically,
the time of the Danite Samson, the tribe of Dan had
only a fortified camp and
not a settlement at all. Dan apparently
had no
borders, as it is significantly missing in the system of border
descriptions
which originated in the period of judges.
Danite scouts traversed the country as far north as the Jordan's
source. There they found a city, Laish,
whose area was well suited to
their purposes.
They succeeded in conquering the isolated city, and
renamed it Dan. The city grew into the character of a
Canaanite city-
state and the tribe became half-caste. It is an interesting example of how
the
different tribes met with different degrees of success and took longer
in
settling in after the Conquest.
The
Bible indicates that the loose tribal confederation saw Dan’s
autonomy as a
problem. In the more recent literature,
Dan appears pri-
marily in lists, anywhere from near the middle to near the end
of the 12.
Individuals from the Dan tribe that are mentioned in the Bible tend to
either come from an
intermingling of blood outside the 12 tribes, or as in
the case of Samson, have
a desire to marry outside of the 12 tribes.
2. A city in the extreme north of Palestine
to which Danites migra-
ted. Dan is
identified with a site located at the foot of Mount Hermon,
overlooking the
Huleh Plain nearly 200 meters below. The
site of the
mound has four sides and measures 460-550 meters in length; it was
occupied throughout the Bronze Age (3000-1200) and in the Iron Age
(900-600)
after the reign of Solomon. During the
Canaanite period, the
city was known as Laish.
After
the Danites abandoned their original territorial allotment
because of
Philistine occupation, they migrated to the north and captured
Laish, renaming
it Dan. Dan was one of the two cities in
Israel (northern
kingdom) in which King Jeroboam established a Yahweh sanctuary
complete with a golden calf. Early in
the 800s, it was one of the cities
taken by Ben-hadad of Damascus, whom Asa of
Judah asked to attack
Israel. Elsewhere
in the Old Testament, the city is frequently mentioned
in the phrase “from Dan
to Beer-sheba” as Israelite territory's northern-
most point.
D-2
DAN-JAAN (יען דנה) The King James Version’s translation of a town’s name
in northern Palestine
certainly Dan, but the text’s
corruption doesn’t allow for a clear translation.
DANCING (מחלה (mekh o law); כרר (kaw rar); orceomai
(or ke om ah
ee)) The harmonious & rhythmic movements of
the body in sheer exube-
rance of spirit and bodily health, or in conscious
devoted joy before God.
The Hebrew word karar is used to describe
David's long & whirling dance
before the ark.
Dancing in the Bible could be an act of praise (II Samuel
6), graceful
and beautiful (Song of Songs 7), or idolatrous (Exodus 32).
In the New Testament, orcheomai is
used of Herodias' daughter's seduc-
tive dancing (Mark 6, Matthew 14) & also of
innocent dancing (Matthew
11, Luke 7).
It
is clear that dancing was a prominent feature in religious feasts.
Ancient religion was joyous. The sanctuaries
were the scenes of celebra-
tion, and the festivals were occasions of rejoicing
before God, so that
dancing would be an inevitable and normal part of
worship. Apparently
it was an activity
so common as not to require special mention.
Yet
certain dances are mentioned, such as the dancing, music, and
singing that was
used to celebrate Israel's deliverance at the Sea of Reeds
Perhaps
Passover included a limping dance.
David, dressed as a priest,
danced before the ark. Similarly, there is evidence of dancing on
the Day
of Atonement, on the day before and during the Feast of Tabernacles.
There is little mention of dancing in the Psalms, but enough to
show that
it was a part of worship. The
processions mentioned in the Psalms,
being mainly occasions of triumph and of
joy, would inevitably include
acts of dancing or rhythmic religious movement.
DANIEL (דניאל, judge of
God) The book now appearing in English versions
as the fourth of the
prophetic writings contained in the Old Testament
(OT); also, the man of the
same name. The name was used in Ezekiel
14, I Chronicles 3, Ezra 8, and Nehemiah 10.
A
similar name appears in ancient times outside of Hebrew and the
Bible. In the Ugaritic language (2000-1000 B.C.)
Daniel means “God
has judged,” & was used to identify a wise king. From Ezekiel we may
take it that was a
Phoenician-Canaanite tradition about a king who in
some stories not preserved
for us had a reputation for uprightness of
character and surpassing
wisdom.
The
relation of this legendary figure to the central figure of the
book of Daniel
is not certain; most likely the author of Daniel was
familiar with a number of
stories about him. In our author's
hands,
Daniel becomes a young Jew, who is loyal to his ancestral religion &
who is made by divine inspiration wiser than all the sages of
Mesopo-
tamia. The older traditions make
no references to Daniel's unshakable
faith in God & courage of the highest
order in the face of persecution.
These
we may consider to be bestowed upon the character by the
author of our present
book.
The
content of the book divides into two parts.
The first part
contains six stories, five of which are about Daniel, and
one about his
friends. In these stories, Daniel is introduced in the third
person. The
stories are: Daniel & his friends are loyal to their
religion in matters
of food; the king's dream about an image interpreted by
Daniel; the 3
friends are cast into the furnace for refusing to worship an
image;
Nebuchadnezzar's madness is prophesied by Daniel; the writing on
the
wall (See entry on Mene, Mene, Tekel,
and Parsin); Daniel is cast
into a lion's den for refusing to recognize Darius
the Mede as a god.
In
the second part Daniel receives four visions.
The first vision
is of the four beasts arising from the sea. They typify four world
empires. A fifth kingdom typified by a human figure (Daniel
7), a
Son of Man, is established by God as an everlasting dominion. The
second vision is of the ram and the
he-goat. A ram with two horns is
destroyed by a furious he-goat. The third vision is of the 70 weeks.
Daniel is let into the secret that the 70
years which Jeremiah prophe-
sied as the duration of the Exile actually means 70
weeks of years or
490. The final vision
is of the revelation of the angel, when Daniel is
told by an angelic being what Israel's history is to be from the time
of the Persian Empire to the Greek Empire's rise under Alexander.
D-3
There
are four component metals in the king's dream about an
image, which correspond
to the four beasts of the first vision.
The
stone of the dream is the everlasting fifth kingdom of the
vision. The
usual explanation is that
the four kingdoms are Babylon, Media, Persia,
and Greece. Stories 1-4 are set in the reign of
Nebuchadnezzar, story
5 in the reign of Belshazzar, & story 6 in the reign of
Darius the Mede.
Vision 1 is set in the 1st
year of Belshazzar's reign, vision 2 in his third
year, vision 3 in the first
year of Darius the Mede, and vision 4 in the
third year of Cyrus. In other words, the stories and visions are
in
chronological order.
When
the OT canon was fixed around 90 A.D., Daniel was in
the Hebrew Bible's Writings section, rather than the Prophets section,
which Hebrew tradition
regarded as closed since about 200 B.C.
The
Greek-speaking Jews rearranged the order of the books in the primary
Greek version of the OT with Daniel in the Prophets section. The
Greek version is most likely the one that
early Christians used. Thus,
orthodox
Jews showed only a moderate enthusiasm for the book, partly
because of its
end-of-time calculations, & partly because of the general
Jewish reaction
against this kind of literature. Christians on the other
hand readily accepted
its prophetic character and value.
As
to the book's language as we received it, Chapter 1 to the begin-
ning of 2
was in Hebrew, Chapters 2-7 was in Aramaic, and Chapters 8-
12 are again in
Hebrew. The three main theories are that:
the stories
first existed as a complete work in Aramaic, and the visions
were added
later in Hebrew, with parts translated from Aramaic to Hebrew and vice
versa by someone other than the author; the whole book was written in
Hebrew but chapters 2-7 were lost and the replacement came from an
Aramaic
translation; the book was written in Aramaic & the first chapter
& the last
four were done into Hebrew in order to appeal to Jewish piety.
When
we consider the character of the Hebrew and Aramaic, the
question arises
whether the language can give any clue to the date of com-
position. There are Greek and especially Persian
loan-words from late in
that empire's history that suggest a period of writing
other than the early
Persian period of the book. While the linguistic evidence is not strong
enough to rule out the bare possibility of the book's being a product from
the
Babylon and Persia of the 500s B.C., it makes it extremely unlikely
that the
book was written in that period.
The
book divides itself into two halves, stories (chapter 1-6) and
visions (chapter
7-12). The vivid simplicity of the
first when compared
to the complicated obscurity of the second, has led many
scholars to see
the book as a combination of two different authors. Also, parts are told
in the third-person, & parts are told in the first-person; parts are in He-
brew, while other parts are
in Aramaic.
All these differences within
one book lead to the idea of different
authors, and to a bewildering variety of partitions of the book. The fact
that
the divisions between stories and visions, between Aramaic and He-
brew, and
between third- & first-person passages do not coincide, calls
for the
recognition that the book is the work of one man, who changed
his method and
styles of working, but who produced a literary unity.
There
are historical problems with the dating of Jerusalem's siege
and certain
details about it. Also, doubts are
raised about certain rulers in
the book of Daniel. 1st, Jerusalem was besieged in the third
year of
Jehoiakim's reign, when history tells us it was his eleventh year. Also, it
was not Jehoiakim who was handed
over to Nebuchadrezzar, as it states
in Daniel and in its likely source, I
Chronicles 36, but his son Jehoiachin.
2nd,
it says in chapter 4 that Nebuchadnezzar is said to have
suffered banishment
from Babylon for seven years because of madness.
We can find no trace of this extraordinary
event in any other record. It
now appears
probable that in the original tradition, the king in question
was Nabonidus,
who was also Belshazzar's father, rather than Nebucha-
drezzar as Daniel
says.
3rd,
the identity of Darius the Mede is the crucial problem. The
only possibility is that Darius the Mede
is known to history by some other
name.
In Daniel Darius the Mede is after Belshazzar and before Cyrus.
History, in the form of ancient tablets,
clearly shows the end of Belshaz-
zar's reign & the beginning of Cyrus' as
overlapping by 2 months. There is
no
room in historical accounts for a king in between their two reigns.
The 4th problem is that of the Median Empire.
The most common
interpretation gives the 4 empires as: Neo-Babylonian,
“Median,” Persian,
and Greek. As “Darius
the Mede” never existed, so too, no Median Empire
interposed its control over
Babylon, having been conquered by Cyrus
before the Neo-Babylonian Empire
began. At one time the four empires
were
interpreted as: Neo-Babylonian, Persia, Greece, and Rome. When
the fifth kingdom still had not come
after the passing of the Greek rulers,
the Romans became the fourth kingdom, in
order to buoy up deferred
hopes for a fifth kingdom.
D-4
While
the book appears to be written in the 500s B.C., the book
is not mentioned
until the 100s. The author of Daniel
states that its
revelation will be kept secret until the “time of the end.” This means
that the period at which the book
was allowed to circulate was thought
by someone to be the “time of the end.” Either the book was written in
the 500s and
hidden for 400 years, or it was written in the 100s B.C.,
under the guise of
being composed some 400 years earlier.
In
support of the first view, there is the testimony of the book
itself, its first-person
style, the dating of events, and the provision for its
late appearance. Further, Daniel was accepted by the New
Testament
writers as “the prophet” & by the rabbis at Jamnia in 90 A.D. as a
work
of the 500s. For many, the main
argument for accepting the book's 500s
B.C. origin is the disastrous
results of accepting the other alternative,
i.e. that it can only be described
as a “pious fraud.” The timelessness
of
this classic piece of writing is the best argument against avoiding the
conclusions
pointed to by the evidence at hand.
1st,
there are the discrepancies with the book itself. Daniel
becomes “ruler over
the whole province of Babylon,” a year before he
graduates from training for
that very job. The cessation of daily
sacri-
fice in the Jerusalem temple is given as lasting anywhere from a little
over three years to 70 days short of 4 years.
These variations are hard
to explain if the book is an inspired,
accurate prophecy by Daniel of the
events far ahead of his time. They become more understandable if the
author
is writing a number of separate pieces in the midst of Antiochus
Epiphanes' persecution.
2nd,
if the book was written by Daniel in the 500s, he must have
known the true
succession of Babylon's power, & he must have falsified
it. But if we accept the work as a production of
the early 100s B.C. and
a collection of separate works, then the change of
language, the change
from first-person to third-person and the historical errors
may be seen as
the mistakes of a man who has a faulty knowledge of events which
took
place 400 years before his own time.
Thus the evidence's weight forces us to the conclusion that the
book of Daniel wasn't merely published, but was also written late in the
Greek
period of the 100s B.C. The author's knowledge of some events
and the inaccuracy of others narrows the date of the
book to 166-165
B.C. (See also the
entry in the OT Apocrypha / Influences Outside the
Bible section of the
Appendix.).
When
the book is read against the background of Antiochus Epipha-
nes' persecution, the purpose becomes clear. The author evidently re-
shaped the stories to have a relevance for his
own day. Parallels between
the history of the persecution and the book of Daniel are too many & too
exact to
be fortuitous, and the message for the writer's contemporaries was
too clear
to be overlooked by them—be courageous and remain loyal, and
God will deliver
you also!
The
persecution was intense, & many were martyred; some further
message was
necessary. Our writer found it in the
new teaching about the
this age's end & the new one's beginning. 1st, there was the prophetic idea
that God
controlled history. There is a fixed
span of time allotted by God
to the evil powers. This prophecy must have come to the Jews of
the day
as a message of glorious reassurance and hope. The 2nd great boon was
that the new age held out to
men brought up on the Sheol doctrine the
prize of a life in a world to
come. Thus, the book’s purpose is to
meet the
urgent need of the Jewish people in the face of persecution.
But,
for writing to be scripture, it must have a relevance not only
for its own age
but also for every age. The Book of
Daniel's noble call for
the oft-forgotten virtue of courage will meet with a
response wherever
men are faced with the final challenge—disloyalty or
death. It is a book
for
character-training. Its insistence that time too is the creature of God,
and
that all history is under God's sovereign will, is a lesson that human-
kind can
never be allowed to forget. In Daniel we
are reminded how grim
is one's situation when one thinks that this brief life
span here must encom-
pass one's whole destiny.
Daniel
tried to calculate the time of the end of this age and failed,
and his failure
is part of holy scripture, to remind all lesser people to heed
the warning of
Jesus on the impossibility of knowing when the end will
come. Nor is the book rightly to be accused of
being merely a “pious
fraud,” for our modern standards of authorship,
plagiarism, and copyright
are the product of the printing press, & aren't
the standards of the ancient
world.
Our author played fair by the standards of
his day, for he did not
create his message, but received it from the tradition
of the movement
believing in the end of this age and the beginning of the
new. The author
of Daniel gave the
message of this book in all good faith to those who
stood in sore need of it,
little guessing the vast number of people that
would end up being.
D-5
DANNAH (דנה, stronghold) A village of Judah
Debir.
DAPPLED (ברדים (baw rode), mottled) A term referring to the color of cer-
tain
horses in Zechariah 6.
DARDA
(דרדע, pearl of wisdom) One
of the sons of Zerah, son of Judah
was
proverbial for wisdom, which was surpassed only by Solomon's.
DARIC
(דרכמון (dar kem own)) A
Persian gold coin of 8.4 grams. It is
the
first coin mentioned in the Bible.
It seems that in the Persian period each
gold coin was called a daric.
DARIUS (דריוש, he who upholds the good) Darius I, the Great (522-486 B.C.).
Cambyses II died during a period of political
unrest in Persia. Gautama,
who claimed
to be the murdered brother of Cambyses, made a strong bid
for the throne. Darius' struggle, with the help of 6 companions, against
Gaumata & leaders of revolts ended in consolidating his possessions,
which extended from Sogdiana & India in the northeast & east, to Thracia
and Libya in the northwest and west. The close contact between Persia
& continental Greece led to the Ionian Revolt.
It was Darius' huge arm
that was defeated at Marathon (490). Darius designated his son Xerxes
as his
successor.
A
glimpse at Darius' conviction in matters of religion and ethics is
shown by two
of his decrees. The first is a royal
decree for Gadatas not to
levy taxes from the officials of Apollo temple nor to
force them to culti-
vate soil. The other
decree was to cease obstruction & to promote recon-
struction of the temple in
Jerusalem.
DARIUS THE MEDE A
king of Babylon
only, who is said to
have followed Belshazzar and preceded Cyrus. Daniel
was one of three presidents he elected to preside over 120
satrapies. (For
details on his place in
history See Daniel entry).
DARKON (דרקון, rough,
stern) Head of a family of “sons
of Solomon's ser-
vants” returning from exile with Zerubbabel.
DART (מסע, mas saw; שבט, shay bet; beloV (bel os), used in King James
Version) A short
pointed weapon used for thrusting; Joab used three darts
to kill Absalom (II
Samuel 18). In Hebrew 12, the King James Version has
“thrust through with a
dart”; the Revised Standard Version omits this
phrase as a very late addition.
DATES
The fruit of the palm tree is
used as a metaphor extolling the bride in
Song of Songs [Solomon] 7. Dates formed a staple food in ancient times,
for the palm tree is frequently mentioned.
DATHAN (דתן, strong) Son of Eliab, from the tribe of
Reuben. Leader, with
his brother Abiram,
of a revolt against Moses’ authority. The
accounts of
2 revolts against Mosaic leadership of the wandering Israelite tribes
have
been put together in Numbers 16.
One is by Korah on religious grounds;
the other is a protest by Dathan & Abiram against Moses assuming autho-
rity over the community joined with
disenchantment with Moses' progress
towards the Promised Land. The vindication
of Moses' commission is
obtained by appeal to Yahweh. As a result of divine action Dathan, Abi-
ram,
their families and goods are swallowed up by the earth.
DAUGHTER-IN-LAW (כלה (kaw law), bride)
Incestuous relations with a
man's daughter-in-law are forbidden;
death is the penalty for both. The
daughter-in-law belonged to the family group and migrated with it to a
new
land. She is a “bride” during the period
of betrothal and marriage
transaction.
DAVID
(דוד, beloved) The
second king of Israel
sources we
have for the history of David are both of the books of Samuel,
and I Kings 1-2;
a story similar to that in I Kings is told in I Chronicles
11-29, with
significant omissions and additions.
Samuel and Kings was
written near the time of David; Chronicles was
written several hundred
years later.
D-6
The
name David appears nearly 800 times in the Old Testament
(OT), and about 60
times in the New Testament (NT).
Tradition is unani-
mous in attesting David's Judean origin. He was a member of the Bethle-
hemite family
of Jesse, who was the son of Obed & the grandson of Boaz
& Ruth. Hence Moabite blood flows in David's veins.
David had at least
six brothers and two sisters (See Table 1). David's family
is far more
complicated, having had several wives bearing many sons, & having
ruled
as king in 2 different cities. (See Tables 2 & 3) While stories of David's
fame may have been
embellished by later elements, there is no reason to
doubt their essential
correctness. David was a gifted & many-sided, even
charismatic person.
Early Stories—He first comes to the biblical narrator's attention
with Saul's disobedience, when Saul was
rejected by Samuel in favor of a
“neighbor of yours, who is better than you.” Samuel requested an intro-
duction to the sons
of Jesse. One happened not to be
present, because
he was tending the flock that day. This was the one whom the Lord had
chosen to
be king.
When David arrived, Samuel “anointed
him in the midst of his bro-
thers.” A
different part of I Samuel follows more logically on the occa-
sion of Saul's
disobedience. Saul became melancholy, & a skillful player
on the lyre or harp
was suggested. Evidently David's ability
as a gifted
musician was well known. The
king thought very highly of him & made
him one of his armor-bearers. This appears to be the most likely way that
David was introduced to royal circles.
The Goliath tale is probably
secondary. It has David coming to
the
notice of Saul through the heroic feat of the slaying of the Philistine
giant. Soon after arriving at the battle
scene, he heard the taunt of the
Philistine & offered to accept his
challenge, to the disgust of Eliab. Saul
was persuaded and permitted him to proceed.
David couldn’t bear the
armor Saul wanted to provide for him, choosing
instead of fight his own
way. With his
staff and sling, the shepherd was champion; Goliath lay
dead. So, the 2 stories of his coming to the notice
of Saul were so firmly
established in the tradition that neither could be
suppressed in favor of
the other.
On
one return from a campaign David and his group of soldiers,
were welcomed home
by women celebrating their victory with the fateful
song: Saul has
slain his 1,000's, and David 10,000's (I Samuel 18). Saul
couldn’t bear such extravagant praise
for the man who had so recently
come to his court. Saul's attempt to pin David to the wall with
his spear
is explained as a seizure of an “evil spirit from God.” The more success-
ful David was, the more
frustrated Saul became, because every time
David went out against the enemy, he
returned in triumph. Jonathon
pleaded with his father, and Michal plotted his escape.
His own children's partisanship for David so enraged Saul that he
pursued him to Naioth in Ramah, seeking his life. David's marriage to
Michal appears certain. And, from their first meeting David & Jonathan
developed a relationship which was to last beyond Jonathan’s death.
They entered into a friendship covenant. For the most part, Jonathan
appears to have taken the initiative, perhaps because of his position
as king’s son.
The
Fugitive—The only avenue of escape
from the clutches of
Saul was to the Philistines at Gath
were suspicious of David and possibly a bit
resentful because of his
success against them.
From Gath, David fled to Adullam and took the
first step towards the
throne of Israel, by gathering about him “everyone
who was in distress, and
every one who was in debt, and every one who
was discontented.” They formed the nucleus of his later troop of
profes-
sional soldiers. David was
informed of a Philistine raid against Keilah;
he and his men drove the
Philistines away and took a quantity of booty.
Table 1
Family of Jesse
Boaz and Ruth
ǀ
Obed
(Sons)
_____________________________ǀ__________________________
ǀ ǀ ǀ ǀ ǀ ǀ ǀ
Eliab Abinadab Shammah Nethanel Raddai Ozem David
or or
Elihu Shimeah
or
Shimei
Obed
(Daughters)
_____________ǀ___________________
ǀ ǀ
Zeruiah Abigail
__________________ǀ__________ ǀ
ǀ ǀ ǀ ǀ Abishai Joab Asahel Amasa
D-7
Table 2 David’s Wives and Sons
(Part One)
Michal Abigail Ahinoam Maacah Haggith
ǀ ǀ ǀ ǀ ǀ
Daniel Amnon Absalom Adonijah Shephatiah
David’s Wives and Sons
(Part Two)
Bath-sheba
Abital Eglah (Bath-shua) Others
ǀ ǀ ǀ ǀ
Ithream Shimea Ibhar
Shobab Elishua
Nathan Nogah Nepheg
Japhia
Elishama
Beelida
Eliphelet
Table
3 Lists of David’s Sons
(Born at Hebron )
II
Samuel I Chronicles 3
1. Amnon Amnon
2. Chileab Daniel
3. Absalom Absalom
4. Adonijah Adonijah
5. Shephatiah Shephatiah
6. Ithream Ithream
Lists of David’s Sons
(Born in Jerusalem)
II Samuel 5 I Chronicles 3 I Chronicles 14
1. Shammua Shimea Shammua 2. Shobab Shobab Shobab
3. Nathan Nathan Nathan
4. Solomon Solomon Solomon
5. Ibhar Ibhar Ibhar
6. Elishua Elishama Elishua
7. Eliphelet Elpelet
8. Nogah Nogah
9. Nepheg Nepheg Nepheg
10. Japhia Japhia Japhia
11. Elishama Elishama Elishama
12. Eliada Eliada Beeliada
13. Eliphelet Eliphelet Eliphelet
Three
times Saul went in pursuit of David, and three times David
escaped eastward,
ending up at En-gedi on the Dead Sea.
Loyalists were
not slow in bringing the news of David's new hide-out to
Saul. On this
campaign the king fell
into the hands of the fugitive, who spared his life
because he had sworn he
would not lay hands on the Lord's anointed one.
David escaped westward and asked for a “gift” from Nabal in return for
“protection.”
Nabal refused and dire consequences were averted only by
swift action of his
servants & his wife Abigail, who married David after
Nabal's death. Once more Saul is said to have pursued David,
only to
fall into the power of the latter, who again spared his life.
David
sought protection of Gath’s Philistines; Achish, their king,
gave David Ziklag,
where he might fend for himself. At
Ziklag, he
became the founder of a small dynasty which served to launch him on
his further efforts to procure Israel’s throne.
Achish wanted David with
him when the Philistines decided to strike
Israel again, but the other
Philistines objected. David was then free to gain supplies in order
to
wipe out opponents on the borders of Judah.
David's “kingdom” of
Ziklag marked the second step on his way to the
throne of Judah. The
areas David
conquered during this time owed allegiance to no one but
David. His followers were also bound to him
personally, rather than a
place, a group of elders, or to a religious
institution.
D-8
King
at Hebron—Soon after his return from
his expedition
against the Amalekites, news reached David of the defeat of
Israel at
Gilboa & Saul & Jonathan's death. After he executed the messenger,
who had
killed Saul at Saul's request, David went into mourning, compo-
sing one of the
finest odes on friendship that has ever been written.
This composition leads to the tradition that
believes David wrote many
of the Psalms, although most likely not all of the 73
which have his
name in their title.
David
lost no time in marching northward in Judah after an inquiry
of the oracle of
the Lord. At Hebron, Judah’s elders
entered into a virtual
covenant with him, and anointed him king over their
territory. But Abner,
Saul's field
marshal, had to be reckoned with. He had
set up Ish-bosheth,
Saul's son, as Saul's successor. This was a purely arbitrary act without
divine sanction, but customary in surrounding nations. Ish-bosheth’s
forces and David’s met in the
border area at Gibeon and Abner and his
army were routed by Joab; Abner
struck down Joab's brother Asahel and
began a blood feud. The two sides reached a mutual agreement, but
David's position became stronger, while that of Ishbosheth was gradually
losing strength and face.
“Abner
was making himself strong in the house of Saul,” and was
the de facto
executor of Saul's kingdom & as such immediately undertook
arrangements with
David to deliver to him the political estate.
David was
now in position to lay down certain terms favorable to himself
that would
not harm the pride of Abner or Israel
ted his incapacity to maintain Israel against David, while
David had
definitely shown his ability by uniting all Judah under his
rule. But just
when the stipulations
agreed upon were about to be consummated, Joab
carried out his revenge upon
Abner for the slaying of his brother Asahel.
When
news of Abner's death reached Ishbosheth, both he and his
followers, realizing
the extent of their loss, were utterly disheartened.
Then two leaders of guerrilla bands from
Beeroth murdered Ishbosheth
during his noonday siesta; David rewarded the
leaders with death. The
only legitimate
successor was the lame Mephibosheth.
David's claim as
son-in-law of the king was thus unimpeachable.
The elders of Israel made their way to Hebron
and formally carried
through the agreement made by Abner. Israel's perception is that the Spirit
of the Lord was with him. “Then all the
tribes of Israel came to David at
Hebron,” & a covenant was made; David was
forthwith anointed king over
Israel.
David was now king of Judah and king of Israel, but not of a so-
called
united kingdom. For 7 1/2 years David
remained at Hebron, first as
king of Judah and then as king of Israel.
King
at Jerusalem—David's first step after
becoming Israel's
king of was to move his residence from Hebron to the
extraterritorial city
of Jerusalem. It
was neutral ground and so would not arouse jealousy on
the part of either Judah
or Israel. The fortress could be entered
only
through the water shaft, which is how David captured it. He never incor-
porated the city into either
kingdom; it remained outside the regal system
apparently throughout the period
of the kingdom of Judah.
Evidently
the Philistines were slow in reacting against the rapidly
expanding power of
David. It is possible that they took
action against
David as soon as they learned of his anointing by the elders of
Israel, in
order to protect their trade routes. The first battle took place in the Valley
of
Rephaim just to the southwest of Jerusalem at Baqa. The new king
defeated them at a place called
Baal-perazim, because David knew every
inch of the land and was perfectly
acquainted with the Philistine tactics,
having lived among them. He defeated them a second time in the same
valley and pursued them northwestward.
This
defeat ended his major open conflict with the Philistine and
turned the tables
on them; they became his vassals. He did
not even add
their city-states to Judah or Israel; he just let their
tyrants govern them as
vassals. The
areas which originally belonged to Israel or Judah were
doubtless taken over
and incorporated in the respective territories.
The
next major diplomatic stroke was David's handling of the
religious
problem. Saul paid no attention
whatever to the old national-
religious symbol of the ark. David resolved to make amends by bringing
the
ark to Jerusalem. He thus returned to
the primitive religious tradition
of the 12 tribes. Not only did David thus bring to his capital
the sacred
symbol of Israel and combine the religious with the political
elements
there, but he went even further.
He included the priests in his official
family. That David should have desired to build a
house for the ark is
what might be expected.
Just why his plan was not carried through is
unknown.
The
main conquests of David fell in the early period of his reign.
The order in which his wars took place is
uncertain. The Philistines were
probably
first, and the Moabites were the next people to feel the thrust of
his
power. The Aramean wars are associated,
at least in part with the
campaign against Ammon. The Ammonites called in their Aramean allies,
four of which are mentioned: Zobah, Rehob, Ishtob, Maacah. The genius
of Joab asserted itself, with the
result that the Arameans fled and the
Ammonites retired to their
stronghold. Zobah and his allies battled
Joab
at Helam; the Arameans were roundly defeated. The result was a treaty
of peace under which
they became subjects of David.
D-9
David's
rule now extended as far north as Hamath and eastward to
the Euphrates. The Ammonite campaign continued; Joab laid
its capital
under siege. Ammon became
Davidic territory with David ostensibly as
king. Edom was attacked after the Aramean
campaign. The battle took
place in the
Valley of Salt and ended in complete victory.
David was now
the undisputed master from Egypt to the Euphrates. He was king of Judah,
Israel, Jerusalem,
Ammon, and the Canaanites states, ruler by governors
over the Aramean states
and Edom, and chief of Moab. He was the
most
powerful ruler in the world, due in large part to the fact that there was
no
formidable power elsewhere in the world in the early 900s B.C.
David's
affair with Bathsheba was during the Ammonite campaign's
last phase. One evening while he was walking about on the
roof of his
palace, his passions were aroused when he saw Bathsheba
bathing. Her
husband was Uriah the
Hittite, one of David's mercenaries.
David sum-
moned him home, but he was too much a man of conscience to
enjoy
himself at home while his associates were in the field. David sent him
back to Joab with his own
death warrant. Uriah was slain in the
thick of
battle and David was free to marry his widow. David's sin did not consist
of adultery but
of appropriating another man’s wife of after having had him
murdered. His first child by Bathsheba died; his second
child was Jedidiah,
better known as Solomon.
The
conquests of David brought immense wealth and luxury to
Jerusalem. Moreover, they kept David from his family
much of the time.
The family feud between
Amnon & Absalom over the latter's sister, Tamar,
originated in uncontrolled passion & ended in tragedy, Tamar's forceful
seduction of by Amnon and the death of Amnon by Absalom's
hand.
Absalom was exiled for three years
to Geshur, & himself took the initiative
by inducing Joab to intercede for
him.
The
rather lengthy story of Absalom's return is used as introduction
to
Absalom's revolt. Absalom, being quite
aggressive, gathered a group of
sympathizers, & began to capitalize on the
manifest discontent of dissident
individuals. He obtained permission from David to proceed to Hebron,
where he had
himself proclaimed king. David evacuated
Jerusalem in the
face of this revolt, being able to trust only his servants & his professional
army. While many of the
people were sympathetic to David, they were for
the most part, unable to do
anything effective. David did urge
Hushai to
remain to nullify Ahithophel's counsel. Hushai delayed Absalom's pursuit of
David
until he had crossed the Jordan.
David
had taken up residence at Mahanaim, the old seat of Ish-bo-
sheth, where he was
supplied amply by his friends who remained loyal.
When Absalom's army appeared, David ordered
his army to spare Absa-
lom. The battle
went against Absalom, his army was cut to shreds, & Absa-
lomwas slain by
Joab. This uprising highlighted the
distinctions between
Israel & Judah.
Israel was conscious of its identity; so was Judah. And, on
a broad basis, they continued to
maintain their independent loyalties.
The
whole episode demonstrates one of the weaknesses of David's
empire—
i.e. the lack of effective organization.
Actually David divided the kingdom
instead of uniting it firmly.
After
the Absalom fiasco, there was Sheba the Benjaminite’s abor-
tive move, who tried
to rally Israel against David. Amasa
reluctantly com-
manded the army in this revolt's beginning; Joab stabbed Amasa, took
over command of the army, and won victory. David now took steps toward
a better
organization of Israel’s & Judah’s territories, having come to realize
that
personal union wasn't enough to hold together his empire. David’s
lists showed that his officials weren't bound to either of the kingdoms of
Judah or Israel, but to him. David also had a well-organized fighting force
developed over a period of time.
Forced
labor was introduced again under David.
The Edomites
became David's slaves & were doubtless included in the
forced-labor batta-
lions. Along with
civil officials were the priests, Zadok and Abiathar, who
were over the state
cult. There were also the prophets
Nathan & Gad, who
were more or less attached to the court. All these officials and others with
other
functions show that there was a growing body of high-ranking officers
which was
necessitated by the expanding power and interests of the king.
Whether
organization was a reaction to revolts, or the revolts were a
protest of the
organization's restriction of tribal autonomy, the beginnings of
a tighter
organization are evident in census that was taken. 2 misfortunes
occurred at the time of the
census. The 1st was a famine; the 2nd misfor-
tune occurred after the census.
There was a devastating pestilence which
finally stopped at Araunab’s threshing
floor.
D-10
David’s last days were beset with further
difficulties in relation to the
succession.
This time the trouble was caused by Adonijah. Adonijah had
himself proclaimed king at En-rogel. Adonijah's chief opponent was
evi-
dently the prophet Nathan. King David
was persuaded on his sickbed, to
make immediate arrangements for the investing
of Solomon as successor.
Solomon was
anointed officially by Zadok and Nathan and set on David's
mule, the sign of
royalty. Adonijah was spared until he
asked for Abishag
from the harem; then he was executed. After a 40 year reign over Judah &
a 33-year reign over Israel, David died.
Characteristics
of David—David's early life had
certainly been
filled with honor. Not
once did David attempt reprisal against Saul or indi-
rectly against his
house. He was consistently loyal to his
king. With this
honor he combined a rare
quality of diplomacy. David gradually
subdued
the border areas of southern Judah and attached to his little kingdom
at
Ziklag a growing array of subject cities & territories. His reaction to Saul's
& Jonathan's death,
his tolerant treatment of Abner, Ishbosheth, & Mephi-
bosheth are other signs
of his character.
The selection of
Jerusalem, a Jebusite city, which belonged neither
to Judah nor to Israel, as
his capital & the way he administered it was ano-
ther diplomatic master
stroke. That David was a great warrior is shown not
only by his numerous conquests but also in the way he organized and
deployed his forces. Some of his
methods he undoubtedly learned from
the Philistines; others he derived from his
own ingenuity.
David's
shrewdness as a politician is demonstrated by the personal
unions he formed
with Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. He
maintained tribal
autonomy throughout most of his reign, and he did not neglect
the religious
authorities as Saul had done.
That David was a deeply religious man is
confirmed by every stratum of
the tradition of his kingdom, and especially
by his display of emotion during
the ark’s removal to Jerusalem. Over and
over again the David stories tell us that he was a poet & musician of
note.
Finally, David was a great
organizer. This is demonstrated in the
develop-
ment of his military machine and in his reorganization of his vast
territories
in line with needs revealed by the several rebellions toward the
end of his
reign.
DAVID, CITY OF (עיר דוד (aw yar da veed)) The name given to the Jebu-
sites' fortified city, after the
capture by David. It has been clearly
identified
as the triangular hill wedged between the Tyropoeon & the Kidron valleys,
& overlooking the garden & pools of Siloam, just outside
the southeast
walls of the modern-day Jerusalem. The conquest's narrative suggests
that David entered the town by surprise, by climbing through the water
shaft from the underground spring of Gihon. David
established his resi-
dence within the perimeter of the city (See also Jerusalem entry).
The
city of David retained its distinct identity after Jerusalem had
outgrown its
original boundaries. Nehemiah's account
of the postexilic
restoration of the walls mentions a few well-known monuments
or features
of the city, like the fountain gate, the stairs of the City of
David, the sepul-
chres of David, the house of David, & the Water Gate. Several of these
landmarks have been identified with various degrees of probability by
archaeology. The city of David's northern boundary has yet to be esta-
blished with certainty.
DAWN, THE (שחר (shakh ar); anatolh (an at ol ay))
The King James Ver-
sion usually translates this word as “morning” or “dayspring.”
The Hebrew
word shakhar is primarily the Amorite name for the Venus Star.
DAY
(יום (yowm); hmera (em er ah)) A
division of time. There are 3 principal
uses of the term:
a.) The time of
daylight, from sunrise to sunset, which was typical-
ly divided into morning, noon , & evening.
Before the New Testament era
there was no division of the day into
hours.
b.) The civil day, a space of 24 hours, extending
from sunrise to
sunrise or from sunset to sunset. It would appear that early Hebrews rec-
koned
the civil day from one dawn to the next.
Gradually, however, they
began to count from sunset to sunset, in
accordance with the rising impor-
tance of their lunar festivals. Among the Hebrews none of the days of the
week was named except the sabbath.
c.) Loosely, the period of an action or state of
being, the time of a
notable battle, judgment, disaster, or deliverance. In addition to these uses
of “day,” the term
is employed inexactly in such expressions as dawn of
day,” “break of day,” “a
great while before day.”
D-11
DAY OF ATONEMENT (See Atonement, Day of)
DAY OF CHRIST (hmera Cristou (em er ah kris
too)) The Second
Coming of Jesus
Christ. In certain Old Testament (OT)
passages the
“Day of Yahweh” is mentioned.
This will, as a rule, be an awful day of
divine judgment. When the primary Greek OT was made, the
Hebrew
word for “Yahweh” was not written in Greek letters; instead the Greek
word for “lord,” kyrios was substituted.
Hence, the phrase became “the
Day of the Lord.” Since the early Christians called Jesus “Lord,”
it was
natural that the “Day of the Lord” came to be understood as Christ's
day.
For Paul, the Day of the Lord is
the second coming of Jesus Christ from
heaven with destructive power. The actual phrase “Day of Christ” is used
only twice, both times in Philemon.
The
phrase “Day of God”, emera tou Theou, appears but twice in
the New
Testament (NT), each time in a description of the end of this old
age, and the
beginning of the next. The meanings “Day
of God” and the
“Day of the Lord” were not made clearly distinct from one
another. In
some places in the NT, they
seem to share a very similar meaning.
DAY OF JUDGMENT. In
late Judaism & in the New Testament, the dividing
act of the final drama
between the old and the new age,
bringing God's
just judgment upon all people. It was an act distinct from other develop-
ments
considered as divine punishment in the preliminary stages of the
divine
judgment. It was an act which concerned
both the living and the
dead.
This
highly developed expectation of the new age doesn’t appear in
the Old
Testament. God has a legal contest with
the nations or with Israel:
God
is accuser, witness, and judge in one person.
There are descriptions
of general catastrophes, the horrors of war, and
the judgment of nations,
but the idea of individual judgment of each single human
being, living or
dead, is still lacking.
This concept appears for the first time in Daniel 12:
“Many of those who sleep in the dust of
the earth shall awake, some to
everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting contempt” (verse 2).
(See also the Judgment Day entries in the
Biblical & in the Old Testament
Apocrypha / Influences Outside the Bible
section of the Appendix.).
DAY OF THE LORD (יום יהוה (yowm yah weh; traditionally “Yahweh” is
re-
placed by “adonai” or "Lord" when spoken); hmera kuriou (em er ah
keer
ee oo)) One of the designations
of the impending decisive interven-
tion of God in the prophetic anticipation of
the future. (See also the Judg-
ment Day entry).
The
oldest passage in the Old Testament in which the “day of Lord”
occurs is Amos
5. Clearly, Amos did not originate the
concept of the day of
the Lord, but he opposes the idea that this day would
mean salvation for
Israel. The Day of the Lord includes both disaster and judgment for the
Lord's enemies, & salvation & deliverance for the
remnant faithful. But
according to Amos'
prophecy, it will be a day of misfortune & darkness for
Israel, because their
apostasy, their failing in faithful obedience to God's
law has made them into
enemies of the Lord.
The
description of the universal & oppressively near Day of the Lord
is also
detailed in Isaiah, &d especially with Zephaniah, who is called the
prophet of
the Day of the Lord. This prophecy of
doom seems to be ful-
filled in the catastrophe of 587 B.C., so that one can
speak of the Day of
the Lord as having arrived.
But soon “Day of the Lord” is used again to
point to a new age; it turns
again from the doom prophecy to the salvation
prophecy. The threats are once again directed against
hostile nations. It
brings destruction
of the Godless, but purification & salvation for those who
fear God. The descriptions of the ending of this age
become more & more
detailed in later writings.
In
the New Testament, the end of the world is called the “day of the
Lord” & “the
day of God.” In the case of Paul the day
of the last judgment
is in close association with the parousia of Christ. Paul speaks of the “day
of the Lord,” the “day
of our Lord Jesus Christ,” & the “day of Jesus Christ.”
DAY'S JOURNEY (דרך יום (der ek yowm); hmeraV odoV (em
er as od
os)) The Bible mentions a day's journey, 3 days' journey, & 7 day' journey.
Evidently the distance is not exact; it would depend on the nature of
the
ground traversed. One day's journey
would be between 29 and 40 km.
D-12
DAY STAR (הילל (hay lale), bright one (King
James Version translates it as
Lucifer))
A designation of the king of Babylon in the taunt song of Isaiah
14,
where the pretensions of the bright Day Star to rise higher than all the
stars
are disappointed, and the “bright one,” is obliged to come down to
earth.
DEACON (diakonoV (di ak on os), servant, minister) A title, since apostolic
times, of one of the
major orders of ministers in the church.
The
most likely indication of the office is in Philemon 1, where Paul
addresses the
“bishops & deacons.” Since this letter
is a note of thanks, it
is reasonable that he address the ministers who were
responsible for col-
lecting & sending the offering for his needs. References to deacons in the
literature of
the post-apostolic age are abundant, & afford clear & precise
indications
of their rank & duties. The deacons
ranked third, after bishops
& elders in the ordained ministry; he was
distinctly the bishop's assistant.
At
the Eucharist, the deacons received the offerings of the people &
assisted in
the administration of the elements of communion. They sought
out and visited the sick, the
poor and indigent; they took the consecrated
sacrament to those who were
unavoidably absent from the Eucharist cele-
bration. Attempts to find the beginnings of the
diaconate in Jewish or
pagan sources are but partially successful. The Jewish equivalent dealt
only with worship & not pastoral duties in assisting the synagogue's ruler.
The pagans used the Greek word, but it
apparently applied to the services
waiters and menial servants.
Without
doubt, the church's diaconate was developed in response
to specific needs
within the corporate life of the church itself.
The idea
of service underlies all of Jesus' teaching about his own
ministry and that
of his disciples after him.
In this sense, the diaconate is the foundation of
all of ministry in the
church.
DEACONESS (See deacon) The word is used
to translate the Greek word in
Roman 16, where Paul mentions Phoebe as a “deaconess”
of the church at
Cenchreae. While women
are mentioned in connection with a deacon's
duties, nowhere does the New
Testament describe a ministerial order of
deaconesses. Outside the Bible, their duties are mentioned
as: assisting
the baptism of women, to visit the houses of the
heathen where there are
believing women, and to visit the sick, and to bathe
those recovering from
sickness. Our
chief sources about the order of deaconesses derive from
the Church
Orders. The order does not appear to
have been in existence
in the church at Rome.
DEAD, ABODE OF THE. (ﬨשח (shakh ath), pit, grave; בור (bore), pit, grave;
מות (maw veth),
chambers of hell; ﬨחﬨיﬨ i ץ ר א ('erets takh teeth),
lowest earth; אבדון (ab ad
doen), place of destruction, abyss; שאל
(sheh ole), grave; dhV (ay des)) The teachers and prophets of Israel
couraged speculation about death and the
occult. Consequently the Old
Testament offers no formal doctrine concerning the destination and fate
of the dead. The New Testament, though more specific about
rewards &
punishments in the ultimate Day of Judgment, is likewise vague about
the
preliminary abode of the dead in general.
The
Hebrews believed that the dead did not relinquish existence
per se. Somewhere outside the earth but accessible to
God, they lingered
on, oblivious of their former lives, bereft of all mundane
pleasures, freed
at last from the “sick fatigue” of the flesh, yet at the same
time divorced
from any experience of God's presence. The denizens of this realm are
usually styled
Rephaim.
Although the way to the abode
of the dead was a one-way street,
individual spirits could be evoked for
consultation. The word most often
used
for this abode is Sheol; it is used 66 times. The most plausible view
is that it derives
from the root meaning “to ask or inquire,” as in the place
where oracles were
sought from them. Almost every detail of
the fore-
going picture can be paralleled from Mesopotamian, Canaanite, Akkadian,
and Ugaritic texts.
In
the New Testament the abode of the dead is invariably called
Hades. The abode of the dead is sometimes
personified as an insatiable
demon with wide-open throat or gaping jaws. Nowhere in the Old Testa-
ment is the abode of
the dead regarded as a place of torment.
The con-
cept of an infernal “hell” developed during the Hellenistic
period. A clear
distinction is drawn
between the abode of the dead & the place of damna-
tion. Even in later Jewish thought the abode of the
dead and the place of
torment are clearly differentiated.
D-13
remarkable salt lake situated at the mouth of the Jordan River .
The
most frequent & ancient biblical term for the lake is “Salt Sea.”
The “Eastern Sea” is a third biblical
designation, and appears in certain
rather late prophetic passages. The New Testament makes no reference to
the
Dead Sea under any of its various designations.
The name “Dead Sea”
seems to have been introduced into Greek & Latin
usage in the 100s A.D.
The
Dead Sea begins at the mouth of the Jordan River and extends
southward. It is oblong in shape, 85 km north to south,
and about 16 km
wide at its widest point east to west. The only interruption of its oblong
shape is
a large peninsula two thirds of the way down the eastern shore.
It is enclosed both east and west by steep,
rock cliffs. The surface of the
sea is
391 meters below the level of the Mediterranean, making it the
lowest region of
the earth's surface. The northeast
section of the lake
plunges another 394 meters.
Though
the Dead Sea receives the water of the Jordan, it has no
outlet. Such is the heat & dryness of its
sub-sea level situation, that evapo-
ration of the captive waters keeps pace with
its intake, which results in an
ever-increasing concentration of solid
materials. Elements
of the sea's
drainage basin are
of volcanic
origin, with
salt & sulfur deposits near its
shores, and
mineral
springs.
This
and
the fact that the present Dead Sea is what’s left of a much
larger
mid-Pleistocene salt lake have contributed to a high
degree of salin-
ity. Its being 25% solids makes it
approximately five times as salty as the
ocean and makes it the world's densest
large body of water. The magne-
sium, sodium, calcium, and potassium salts, along with magnesium bro-
mide constitute
the chief mineral resource of the region and have been
commercially extracted at
both ends of the lake.
Since
the water's density greatly exceeds that of the human body,
attempts at
swimming in it can be both amazing and amusing experiences;
one basically bobs
on its surface like a cork. The oily
sheen of its salinity
is visible when viewed close at hand and at certain times
of the day. From
the surrounding hills,
however, with the rising or setting sun over one's
shoulder, it takes on a deep
and beautiful blue, which belie the bitter and
undrinkable water that it
holds. All forms of marine life find it
impossible
to exist in the Dead Sea's briny depths, although fish are
occasionally
found in the brackish pools a few feet from the shore line. Both vegetation
and animal life are found
near its shores.
Steep,
barren hills enclose the sea on either side, rising to a maxi-
mum of
approximately 750 meters above the shoreline on the west & 900
meters on the
east. The eastern mountain wall often
plunges directly into
the sea. Callirhoe & Machaerus are sites of interest near the northeastern
shore. In the mineral-laden hot waters of the first
site, Herod vainly sought
relief from his fatal malady; at the second site,
Antipas had John the Baptist
beheaded in the remote and isolated fortress
there.
The
broken Judean hills on the west are more terraced & receding,
generally
permitting a track to parallel the shore. There are no streams,
but 2 springs producing a high volume of water
beside this western shore
form oases of green along a brown and barren strand:
'Ain Feshkha; and
Engedi. The 1st
spring was near the northwest corner of the sea, next to
the Qumran community,
which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. The 2nd,
Engedi, is about midway down the western shore. It was where David fled
for refuge from
Saul. 16 km further south, on a
commanding crag rising
600 meters above the sea, is the site of the incredibly
strong Maccabean-
Herodian fortress of Masada.
Here, the Jews staged their last desperate
resistance; in 73 A.D. the
defenders took their own lives rather than surren-
der to the Romans.
Directly
across from Masada & 2/3 of the way down the eastern
coast of the sea
a broad peninsula juts outward—at one point reaching
within 3.2 km of the
western shore; there was a Roman ford across the
strait. This peninsula, though called El-Lisan (“the
tongue”), is shaped
like a boot with the toe pointed northward. South of Lisan is a large shal-
low embayment
having a maximum depth only 4.5 meters and becoming
shallower as one proceeds
towards the southern, eastern, and western
shores.
Bordering this embayment all along its
eastern shore is a broad,
fertile plain watered by 5 small streams. That the sea's level has been
steadily increasing is indicated by recent observation of submerged trees
extending on
the east as much as 1.6 km from the bay's present coast.
It is probable, therefore, that all or most
of the sea south Lisan was a plain
and that here were located the five Cities
of the Plain.
Extending
for more than 8 km along the southwestern shore is a 30
meter stratum of
crystalline salt known as Jebel Usdum (“Mount of Sodom”)
The carverned and creviced stratum seems to
have produced a pinnacle
associated with the story of Lot's wife and the pillar
of salt. At its southern
extremity the
Dead Sea slopes almost imperceptibly into a flat and barren
plain of white & glistening salt marsh known as es-Sebkha, which extends
12.8 km southward. South of this point, the rift-valley is known
as the
Arabah.
D-14
The otherworldly appearance of the Dead
Sea's deep & barren
basin often inspires awe and wonder in the minds of those
who view it.
For biblical writers, both
its history and its appearance made of it an apt
symbol of the devastation and
barrenness visited upon those who despised
the law of God. As an inspiration to meditation on the
relation of the
present to the future life, this otherworldly setting was
unexcelled. A
company of Essenes chose a
site on its northwestern shore to establish a
communion of contemplation.
were
discovered in 1947 near the Dead
Sea , and which represent the
most important find of manuscripts bearing on the Bible, the Jewish
religion,
and the beginnings of Christianity. (See also the entries on
Dead Sea
Scrolls, Essenes, and Qumran, Khirbet in the Old Testament
(OT) Apocrypha / Influences
Outside of the Bible section of the Ap-
pendix).
The
exact date & circumstances of the famous find are uncertain.
In February or March, 1947, Muhammad adh-Dhib,
a young Bedouin
of the Ta'amireh tribe entered one of the caves in the cliffs
of the west
coast of the Dead Sea, 13.6 km south of Jericho. There he discovered
jars, mostly 65-75 cm
high and almost 25 cm wide, which contained
leather scrolls wrapped in linen
cloth.
Early
in 1948, by the time the great age and value of the scrolls
had been
recognized, the Arab-Israeli war made
investigation of the
cave impossible. In
1949, several hundred fragments of biblical books,
apocrypha, and unknown
writings were found; this cave had been used
to conceal a library of about 200
hundred scrolls and was called Cave I.
There are indications that this library may have been discovered
previ-
ously long ago.
Four
of the five scrolls found in 1948 were published in 1950 &
1951. They included: a complete book of the
prophet Isaiah; a commen-
tary on the first chapters of Habakkuk; and a Manual of
Discipline.
The last of the 5 scrolls
couldn't be opened at that time. It
later turned
out to be a commentary on some chapters of Genesis. In 1954, other
scrolls were published which
included: another Isaiah scroll; the war
of the Children of Light and
the Children of Darkness and a collection
of thanksgiving psalms.
At
the end of the summer of 1951 some Ta'amireh tribesmen
offered new fragments which
they had found in two caves 17.6 km
south of the first cave. They contained biblical manuscripts of a
strictly
Masoretic type, a papyrus of the 700s B.C., and some letters in
Hebrew
signed by the leader of the Jewish Revolt of 132-135 A.D., Simon bar
Cocheba.
Cave
II, situated a short distance south of Cave I, contained a
portion of the book
of Jubilees and an Aramaic document describing the
New Jerusalem. Cave III, about 1.6 km north of Cave I,
contained frag-
ments in Aramaic and Hebrew, & two copper scrolls. Cave IV, located
just opposite of Khirbet Qumran , was discovered by the Bedouins in
September,
1952. It offered by far the greatest
wealth of fragments: all
biblical books except Esther; many apocryphal
writings; commentaries;
liturgical texts; and other writings of the Qumran
sect.
Caves V-X, all located near Qumran, yielded smaller finds. Later,
Cave XI, not far from Cave III, was found, containing several relatively
complete scrolls. The most mysterious among these finds were 2 copper
scrolls, measuring as a whole 2.4 meters. Both scrolls together have 12
columns; the scrolls give a list of treasures and the places where they
were hidden, which suggests the temple treasury to some scholars.
The
language of most of these writings is the OT Hebrew, written
in a beautiful
hand by learned scribes, on the hair-side of the animal
skins. Scholars studied the style of writing, which
pointed to the second
or first century B.C.
Carbon-dating of the flaxen covers of the scrolls
converged on 33 A.D.,
with a margin of plus or minus 200 years (168
B.C. to 233 A.D.).
Khirbet
(ruins of) Qumran was excavated by archaeologists from
1951-56. These excavations disclosed ruins of a large
fortified monastery,
which served as the sect’s center. There was also an auxiliary of the
monastery
at a site little more than a kilometer south of the main buil-
dings. Large walls there enclosed buildings of the
same date as in
Qumran. (See also the
Qumran , Khirbet entry in the OT Apocrypha /
Influences
Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.).
The following
periods of settlement can be distinguished:
a.)
The site was a rather large city in the 700s-600 B.C.
b.) A earthquake in 31 B.C. forced them to
abandon the site until 4
B.C., when the sect rebuild and used
the site again. The sect probably
defended the monastery bravely, so that the enemy set fire
to it, most
likely in 68 A.D. when the 10th Roman Legion marched against Jericho
c.) After the destruction the site was used partially by
Roman
troops and afterward by Jewish revolutionaries.
The pottery of the monastery is of the same type as that in which the
Dead Sea Scrolls were found.
D-15
The
community of the scrolls formed a part of the Essenes. John
the Baptist was certainly a kind of
Essene, and since Jesus was baptized
by John & took over his mission, he too
must have been closely related
with this group.
Some of Jesus' words can be better understood from
the writings of
Qumran, and in his mission traces of the three offices of
prophet,
Right-Teacher, and Messiah of Israel can be seen.
DEATH (מות (maw veth); צלמות (tsal maw veth), shadow of death;
qanatoV tha na tos))
Since the beliefs about death have changed in
the course of history,
different aspects of it have been emphasized at dif-
ferent times. The view of
death as the normal end of life is found in both
the ancient and more recent
portions of the Old Testament (OT).
Viewed
in this perspective, what follows death is scarcely
important. It was most
commonly
believed that the dead continued to exist in Sheol or in the
family sepulcher,
but this was a non-dynamic existence destined to end
in a relatively brief
period of time.
However,
certain conditions had to be fulfilled if death were to
be thought of as the
end of existence. The normal life span
of 70 years
(Psalm 90) or 120 (Genesis 6) must be attained, the deceased must
leave children to perpetuate his name, & the dead person must be buried
in a
sepulcher. The absence of one of these
conditions made death a
problem which Israelite faith endeavored to solve.
The
disappearance of the nephesh or “soul” from the body some-
times
represented death. No biblical text
authorizes the statement that
the “soul” is separated from the body at
death. It dies with the body or
returns
to God. The stoppage of breath, the loss
of all movement and of
all capacity for relations makes death appear to be the
opposite of life.
The deceased and all things about him took on an aspect of
mystery.
As
faith meditated on the problem of death, its destructive aspect
became
dominant. Premature death was seen as
punishment by a hostile
power or deity.
In the OT these divinities are reduced to the rank of
images, inferior
powers, or angels of death. If God
permits & uses this
power, he does so because the sin of man has rendered
death inevitable
and has given it its “sting.”
The Yahwist writer of the OT resolves the
problem of sin and death by
stating that since humans are created of
perishable matter, their natural
condition is mortality. Israel shares
this
belief with all the Semitic people.
Had humankind persevered in obedi-
ence to God by respecting the divine
commands, God would have
reserved the right to change the human condition & to grant us immorta-
lity as a favor.
The
change brought about by sin has mostly to do with the altered
perspective of
human existence; his entire existence comes under the
shadow of death. However, the OT never expresses the idea that
the Fall
had corrupted human nature beyond repair. If one chooses disobedience,
one takes the
way leading to death. But the mortal
nature of humans
creates in them a propensity for evil, so death may be called
at once a
consequence and a cause of sin.
The
power of death is seen in illness; to be ill is to be in the hold
of
death. The psalms celebrating recovery
from illness as a victory over
death must be interpreted as the view of death
that was contemporary
with the psalms.
Falling into the power of death does not mean passing
beyond the limits
of Yahweh's authority; God employs the forces of
death to punish those who
have turned from God.
In
certain texts which reflect the oldest concept of death, the
dwelling place of
the dead is represented as entirely independent of
Yahweh. Amos affirms however, that the power of
Yahweh extends to
Sheol. The
descriptions of the realm of the dead & existence there feel
the repercussion
of this extension of power to Yahweh.
Beliefs about
death develop so that the dead are no longer treated as
anonymous, and
the wretchedness of the dead becomes the sleep of the dead;
certain
texts consider the sleep of death to be eternal, and it may have been
considered to be the occasion of a more intimate communion with God.
The
hope of a lessening of the power of death develops toward a
resurrection of the
dead rather than toward a superhuman or divine
power of the dead. The affirmation of the triumph of life over
death
represents the main line of thought of the OT as well as of the New
Testament (NT), & the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the definitive sign
of
the power of the living God.
D-16
DEATH, SECOND ( o deuteroV qanatoV (oh do teh ros
tha na tos))
This
expression—limited to Revelation, is defined by John in symbolic
terms as the “lake
that burns with fire and brimstone.”
Second death is
the opposite of that life lived in the presence of God
which is promised
believers.
DEATH OF CHRIST. The
central event in the history of redemption.
From
the very beginning, the Christian church's unanimous convic-
tion has been
that the death of Jesus Christ is the center of the whole
history of
redemption. It is a historically
verifiable event that stands at
the beginning of Christianity, rather than a
doctrine first which later must
be confirmed in history. The way a person thinks about the death of
Jesus of Nazareth
determines salvation and distinguishes faith from
unbelief.
There could be no
resurrection without actual death, and Jesus'
death would have had no more
meaning than any other death without
resurrection. The sources which report on Jesus' death, the
evangelists,
do not describe situations of the past as historians, but as
preachers who
themselves have experienced salvation. Even so, we can still use their
reports as
sources for reconstructing the historical event.
Jesus
died a criminal's death on the cross, the gallows of the time;
the Jewish
aristocracy were held responsible for it.
Christians have
always made a point of accentuating strongly this guilt
of the Jews. Yet
the actual judgment was
made by the Roman occupation forces.
Jesus
was condemned by the Romans as a Zealot. The denunciation before
Pontius Pilate was
made by the highest Jewish authorities, who con-
demned Jesus as mesith or
misleader before turning him over to Roman
courts.
Jewish
leaders accused him before Pilate of instigating tax eva-
sion, which the Romans
regarded as characteristic of the Zealot move-
ment. However, Jesus was no Zealot. He had to deal with the Zealot
movement;
indeed Zealots were among his disciples.
The labels distin-
guishing Simon, Judas, Peter, and perhaps James and
John from others
of their name seem to indicate connections with the
Zealots. But Jesus'
rejection of the
Zealot program is only too clearly attested.
He had occa-
sion again and again to reject the Zealot messianic ideal for
himself as
the satanic temptation.
The
date of this execution can no longer be established with any
certainty. For the date it is better to assume the 14th of Nisan, the
day
before the first main feast day of Passover. The year of Jesus' death is
most likely
33 A.D., for in that year the first day of Passover coincided
with a
sabbath. (See the Biblical entry on the Chronology of the NT for
other
possibilities.).
Jesus
accepted this death quite intentionally.
For him the death
he anticipated stood at the center of his sense of
vocation. The voice
from heaven at the
Baptism designates the moment when it became clear
to him that his task was to
accept the office of the Ebed Jahwe (Isaiah
52) or “servant of the
Lord.” In this role, he would make
amends by his
death the sins of Israel &, in addition, the sins of all
men. He who calls
himself Son of Man
will have to “suffer.” Outwardly it was
the “turn
toward Jerusalem” which brought about the decision. Death for Jesus,
did not at all come as a
friend: he saw in it really the “last enemy.” He
was led by the Father's plan of salvation;
his death was to be the climax
to which all God's saving action led.
For
Jesus' disciples the end of the Master meant at first the factual
collapse of
all hope. The concept of a suffering
Messiah is foreign to
Jewish thinking.
It was possible for them to understand Jesus' death in
analogy to the
usual fate of the prophet. Traces of
this interpretation are
found in Luke 24.
They could also look upon the crucified as one of the
many suffering
righteous ones of Israel.
In early NT
traditions he is designated, in view of his suffering, as
the Righteous
One. Finally, the responsible Jewish
leaders seem to have
feared a third possibility that Jesus could have been
venerated as a Zealot
martyr. Jesus'
position between the Zealots and the aristocracy didn't
make it possible for
him during his lifetime to eliminate from within his
circle of followers the Zealots' false messianic concepts.
Only
the appearances of the resurrected one opened the way for a
“Christian”
interpretation of Jesus’ death. God had
publicly taken sides
with the crucified; Jesus' death became an act in God's
history of redemp-
tion. So, from the
very beginning, the Christian community saw Jesus'
death located at the
center of redemption’s history. The
passion narrative
is the tradition's oldest formulated portion, & the
gospel’s composition
is oriented to the Passion. The Cross is the goal & climax of Jesus' life.
It
is certain that the Old Covenant's holy scripture contributed
decisively
to the interpretation of Jesus' death.
The insistence that he
“must” die is based on the conviction that the
ancient promises must
have fulfillment at the present age's end. And the earthly Jesus looked to
the OT for an
interpretation of his death. We must
always take into consi-
deration this double root of the early Christian
interpretation of Jesus'
death: the
OT & the preaching of the earthly Jesus, who himself appealed
to the OT. If the early community saw in Jesus' death
the fulfillment of
the saving action of the OT Servant of God, then the
community was at
the same time taking over Jesus' own interpretation.
D-17
The
community also shared Jesus' view of this death's decisive
significance.
It fulfilled the function of the Servant of God, vicariously
making amends
for human sin. This is demonstrated by
the community's
ancient message of the (I Corinthian 15) that Jesus Christ died “for our
sins in accordance with the scriptures.” There was an interpretation of
Jesus' death
in legal terms as a legal act through which the situation of the
sinful
creature was basically reordered.
Closely related to this is the cultic
terminology which describes
the legal act of making amends in OT sacrificial
concepts. The idea of
sacrifice plays an
especially large role in the writings reflecting the ideas
of John. OT sacrificial language is also the origin of
speaking of Christ's
blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins; it
is the blood of
the covenant.
His
death is also the decisive act of a cosmic event. The Cross
signifies victory over the powers
hostile to God. Jesus had already taken
up very early the struggle with them.
Jesus' death is the turning point
also of the whole cosmic process,
because through the blood of Christ's
cross the universe is reconciled with
God. Christ is the end of the law,
which
belongs on the side of sin and death.
It
is especially death which is included among the subjugated
powers. The NT knows of no optimistic view of death
as a “friend”
which frees the soul from the bonds of the body; death is the
terrible
consequence of sin. Making
amends for sin is needed to break death's
power at the roots. All believers are drawn into Jesus' victory
over death;
the idea of the first Adam, who brought death, and the second Adam,
who ended death's reign, also plays a role.
Paul uses this idea to anchor
his interpretation of death very firmly in
the saving occurrence of the old
covenant and its fulfillment.
Christians
who believe in the amending death of Jesus Christ sees
themselves in the NT
constantly called upon to “follow” Jesus.
The
meaning of bearing one's cross seems to have been originally that
the
disciple is to accept for himself the same fate of death. Only in that way
can they really be counted
among the disciples of Jesus. The
martyrdom
of Stephen is one example of this.
The
way in which Paul speaks suggests that the saying about
bearing one's cross has
a much broader significance for the Christian; his
whole life is discipleship
in suffering. In hard times the thought
of the
Lord's death has again & again been the source of comfort for
Christians,
for “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his
master.”
DEBIR
(דביר, oracle) 1. A king of Eglon, southwest of Jerusalem
the five kings that attempted to halt
Joshua's invasion.
2. A Canaanite royal city in the southern
Judean hill country, first
settled around 2300 or 2400 B.C. Several sites have been proposed; the
preferred site is about 17.6 km southwest of Hebron.
The
early city was possibly visited by Abraham some time between
2100 and 1900
B.C. The city was destroyed when the
Hyksos assumed
rule of the area, and again when the Hyksos were overthrown. A typical
beaten-earth wall protected the prosperous
Hyksos city, which was on
busy trade routes.
The
Canaanite city was sacked by Joshua in the 1200s B.C. in a
holocaust so violent
that it left ashes three feet thick in some places.
After being almost immediately rebuilt by the
Israelites, it came under
Philistine influence in the mid-1100s & was
destroyed by them a century
later.
Shortly after his defeat of the Philistines, David strengthened
Debir's
fortifications with a typical casemate wall & gateway. It became
the district capital of the
southernmost hill-country district
The
city flourished, reaching the height of its prosperity during the
700s. It was probably attacked by Sennacherib in
701 B.C., & in the next
century suffered two more partial destructions. It began a sharp decline
before 600 & was
destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 587. It
was not rebuilt.
3. A place on Judah's northern boundary,
possibly a wadi or a pass
between Jericho and Jerusalem.
4. A city of Gad, located in the eastern
part of Gilead. When
David was a
fugitive, Machir of this Debir was one of those who furnished
his troops with
provisions. The site has not been
identified.
D-18
DEBORAH (דבורה, bee) 1. Rebekah's
nurse and lifelong companion.
2. One of the early “judges” or charismatic
leaders of ancient Israel.
She was an
outstanding person, one of few women in a leadership role.
She was able to arouse scattered tribes
of Israel to a sense of unity and
loyalty to Yahweh in their early struggles
against the Canaanites. The Song
of Deborah
is one of the oldest examples of Hebrew literature. It is the one
source actually written in
Deborah’s time (1100s B.C.).
It is a
magnificent poem, and shows the Hebrews still isolated in
Palestine’s hill
country, not yet united in any lasting tribal organization, and
just now able
to challenge Canaanite control of the fertile plains. It brings
alive the ancient attitudes toward
God, Israel’s war God, coming to fight
his enemies with storm and torrent. (See
also the entry in the Old Testa-
ment Apocrypha / Influences Outside the
Bible section of the Appendix.).
DEBT, DEBTOR Rules
and customs relative to debts and credit in ancient
sections of the Old Testament
(OT) often condemn practices deemed
contrary to the spirit of Yahweh's religion, these
condemnations were never
fully effective, and they testify to the continuance
of those abuses.
The
imposition of a considerable interest which had become com-
mon practice among
the Semites since the beginning of the 2nd millen-
nium, was discouraged & even condemned by the 1st 5 books of the OT.
Violations of the law in these matters were
frequent and rates of interest
which we would regard as exorbitant had become a
social plague by
making the situation of debtors practically hopeless.
In
the Revised Standard Version, the Hebrew word neshek is trans-
lated as “interest.” In the King James Version the Hebrew is
translated as
“usury.” It should be
remembered that in earlier English, “usury” was not
as negative a term as it is
today. In Babylon a common rate of
interest for
loans of produce was one third of the loan, whereas the interest
on money
was only one fifth. Interest was expressed as a fraction or as an absolute
amount, rather than as a per cent.
Lenders and creditors were protected against the failure of debtors
to repay by a system of guaranties throughout Western Asia. Israelites
adopted this system in its broad
outline, with a few modifications required
by Yahwism's moral ideal. Sometimes a pledge was made by the debtor.
In the majority of cases, the
pledge is to be considered as an objective
token of the debtor's intention to
pay off his debt. Objects needed for daily
living may not be taken as a pledge.
It
is possible that the token pledge replaced a more primitive type of
contract. The debtor pledged to place
his son, daughter, or slave at the
disposal of the creditor. This was tantamount to slavery for
debts. In spite
of the legal restrictions,
the entire system of pledges and sureties was
recklessly abused. A borrower or debtor could also have a third
party
assume responsibility for him and become his surety.
There
are in the New Testament (NT) teachings of Jesus references
to debts, pledges,
loans, & the like, given for illustration's sake, & which
ought not to
be interpreted always as rigorously as paragraphs of law.
Roman law was different from Semitic in that
the creditor could seize an
insolvent debtor and set him to work or keep him in
chains. Legal expres-
sions are used
figuratively in the NT. Hence, in the
Lord's Prayer, “debts”
are synonymous with “sins.” The statement that Jesus was made “surety
of
a better covenant,” ought to be understood against the background of
Israelite
and Jewish usage.
DECALOGUE (See the
Biblical entry for the Ten Commandments)
DECAPOLIS (DekapoliV, ten cities)
A federation of Greek cities in Pale-
stine, originally 10 in number,
mentioned in the Bible only in the gospels
(See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha / Influences
Outside
`` the Bible section of the Appendix.).
By
Jesus’ time, “Decapolis” was a well-known term and indicated
a specific region,
roughly a triangle with Scythopolis as its western point,
Damascus as its northern
point, and Philadelphia as its southern point.
The city names were: Scythopolis,
Hippo, Gadara, Pella, Philadelphia,
Gerasa, Dion, Canatha, Damascus, and
Raphana. Each city was
indepen-
dent and bound to the others in a loose federation; all were regarded as
part of the Syrian province. In the
first 100 years after Jesus' birth they
were thriving cities with colonnaded
streets, a forum, baths, an amphithe-
ater, and at least one theater, temples, an
aqueduct, and tombs.
Their
location indicates their strategic importance, for they were
along or near the
chief trade routes and military highways.
Scythopolis
is the Beth-shan of the Old Testament, located roughly 30 km
south of
the Sea of Galilee. It was the
only one of the cities west of the Jordan,
guarding the main highway which
crossed the Jordan south of the Sea of
Galilee; it was the largest of the
Decapolis after Damascus. Across the
Jordan and 11 km to the southeast is Pella.
Deep in the mountains of
Gilead and almost 34 km southeast of Pella was
Gerasa. A little over 38
km south of
Gerasa was Philadelphia.
D-19
Gadara
was 24 km north-northeast of Pella, & Hippos was almost
13 km north of
Gadara, and 6 km east of the Sea of Galilee.
The location
of Dion is uncertain; it may be 32 km northeast of
Gadara. Raphana was
about 48 km
northeast of Hippos, & Canatha was about 48 km southeast
of Raphana and 80 km
east of the Sea of Galilee at the edge of the desert.
About 80 km north of Raphana and beyond the
Decapolis proper was the
league's northern most member, Damascus. These cities reached their
peak in the 100s
A.D.
DECISION, VALLEY OF (עמק החרוץ (em ek ha khaw roots)) The name
given in the book of Joel to the
place where Yahweh's judgment or deci-
sion falls upon the heathen nations
assembled for their assault on Jerusa-
lem at the end of the present age.
DECK (קרש (keh resh)) A platform extending from side to side on a
ship,
serving as a covering for the space below and as a floor. Decks on early
ships were often only fore and
aft, with rowers in the middle space; a
merchant ship equipped with sails might
have a full-length deck.
DECREE (טעם (teh ame); דת (dawth); אסר (es awr); dogma (dog ma)) A
public declaration or proclamation normally set up in writing. In later
Old Testament books, decrees are
frequently referred to as a result of
their widespread use under the Persian
Empire.
DEDAN
(דדן) An important commercial people which lived in
northwest
of Cush, or as offspring of
Jokshan son of Abraham & Keturah. In
both
cases Dedan & Sheba are brothers. The caravans of Dedan are mentioned
in the Prophets. They are reported as supplying Tyre with
saddlecloths
for riding.
DEDICATION, FEAST OF (חנכה (han uk
ment Apocrypha / Influences Outside the Bible section
of the Appendix.).
DEEP, THE (תהום (teh home); abussoV
(abyss)) A term which refers chief-
ly to the
primeval ocean or to the waters of the Exodus.
In
the Old Testament, tehhome designates: the primeval waters of
Creation; the waters
of the Exodus, which God controls for Israel; some-
times simply deep waters,
impassable to men and horses; the depths of
the earth, apparently without
reference to water; and the forces of chaos.
It is likely that the temple at Jerusalem was related closely to the
creation
myth. It is well known that the
temple on Mount Zion was thought to be
the summit and center of the earth. The rock on which the temple was
founded is
related to the Deep.
DEER
Some scholars claim that the Red Deer
Deer were known in
biblical Palestine. It is, however
impossible to
determine precisely the meanings of the various Hebrew words in
the
Old Testament which appear to refer to deer. Old Testament writers
were not precise in
their use of such terms.
DEFILE (טמא (taw may)) To make unclean or make oneself
unclean. Literally
and precisely, to
make ethically or ritually unclean.
DEGREES, SONG OF King
James Version translation of the title of Psalms
120-34. The Revised Standard Version translates as
Song of Ascents.
(See Biblical entry
on Ascents, Song of). The degrees were
understood to
be the steps leading from the women's to the men's court; on
these steps
the Levites sang these psalms.
DEHAVITES The
King James Version translation, which interprets this word
as referring to one
of the groups which signed the letter from Samaria to
Artaxerxes to protest the
rebuilding of Jerusalem. The Revised
Standard
Version uses different vowels with the Hebrew letters to translate it
as
“that is the Elamites.”
D-20
DELAIAH (דליהו, the Lord delivers) 1. A
priest under David. 2. One of
Jehoiakim's officers. 3. Head of a family which returned with
Zerub-
babel. 4. A descendant of David through
Zerubbabel. 5. Father of
a contemporary of Nehemiah.
DELILAH (דלילה, languid, flirt) A woman of Sorek, probably a Philistine,
beloved by Samson. The Philistines
offered Delilah a large sum of money
to find out where his strength came
from. After misleading her 3 times,
Samson finally told Delilah. She then
betrayed him to the Philistines.
DELIVERER, THE (ישע (yaw shah);
פלט (paw lat); ruomai (roo om ah
hee)) The principal theme of the Bible is God's deliverance of human-
kind
from the powers of sin, death, and Satan through his action in
Jesus Christ, which is foreshadowed by God's deliverance from Egyp-
tian bondage or Babylonian
exile.
The
word “deliverer” occurs 9 times in the Old Testament. God
raises deliverers from God's people when
they suffer oppression or danger.
In the
New Testament (NT), Jesus is not called “deliverer” or “redeemer,”
although “deliverance” is central to the NT’s proclamation,
but the actual
word is found only twice in the English version of the NT. The most
notable use is “deliver us from
evil” in the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6).
DEMAS
(DhmaV) 1. A co-worker of Paul, mentioned in Philemon and II
Timothy 4. 2. Alternate for Dysmas.
DEMETRIUS (DhmhtrioV) (See also
the entry in the Old Testament Apocry-
pha / Influences Outside the Bible section
of the Appendix.). 1. A
Christian leader who enjoyed the full
confidence of John the Elder.
2. A silversmith at Ephesus who provoked a
riot against Paul on the
ground that his Christian preaching was interfering
with the sale of silver
shrines.
DEMON, DEMONOLOGY (שד (shed) אלהים (el oh
heem); daimwn
(dah ee mown);
(See also the entry in the Old Testament
Apocrypha / Influences Outside
the Bible section of the Appendix.).
In
considering the demonology question in the Bible, it must be
remembered that
the modern definition of a demon as a devil, or malign
spirit, is a result of
long development. As used by ancient
writers the
word often means something far different. In ancient times, a demon was
seen as an
anonymous god, one of those vaguer, less identifiable powers.
Both Greeks and Babylonians speak of good and
evil “demons.”
Old
Testament (OT) Demons in General—The
Hebrew equiva-
lent of “demon” is elohim, commonly rendered “god.” The use of the
plural reflects the primitive
notion that “the divine” may be conceived as a
congress of “daimons.” The word daimon will be
used in this article for
these ancient concepts of demons as either good or
evil powers. The
power that is thus
represented as a personal being can be represented
also as an impersonal “influence.”
In the OT, a fusion of the 2 concepts has already been effected,
the spirit (ruach) being always
regarded as itself emanating from a daimon.
It must be recognized, however, that the word ruach is used in two senses,
breath or wind. With spirit
as “breath,” the primitive mind concludes that
it is but the physical
manifestation of something that can exist independent-
ly of the body, and that
simply takes up temporary lodging within it & ani-
mates it. In the sense of spirit as “wind,” there was the notion that spirits
operate on human affairs, & like the winds can bring either good or evil
toward men.
With
the development of monotheism, daimons and spirits tend to
become subordinated
to that central figure as his ministers or “angels”; or
they come together in a
single “holy spirit.” Daimonism
represents an
externalization of human experiences. Feelings and sensations, moods &
impulses
are portrayed as visitations by demons, as outer forces working
upon him. A particularly arresting illustration of this
concept is afforded
by the description of the “suffering servant” as “one
struck by an elohim
and afflicted.”
It took time for the primitive mind to develop to the point where an
outside spirit that troubles becomes the troubled spirit of the person. In the
Bible, it isn't always absolutely
clear whether the spirit is envisaged as that
which operates or that which is
operated upon. The Hebrew shade
is sim-
ply a “protective (or adverse) daimon.”
The Hebrew sawearim means pro-
perly “hairy ones” and refers to a
particular class of genies or sprites.
D-21
Concerning
demons in the modern sense, two points must be made.
1st, demons often survive as figures of
speech long after they cease to be
figures of belief. 2nd, although demons are not in themselves
personifica-
tions of evils, they tend often to be named for those evils. This renders it
difficult to determine
whether a word is being used as a common noun or
as the name of a demon. A number of specific demons known from other
ancient Near Eastern sources are mentioned in the OT. It is open to ques-
tion whether they are
anything more than figures of speech.
Demons
inhabited waste places and ruins. One of
their favorite
haunts is the desert. The
idea is rooted in the peril, eeriness, & unpredic-
tability of life in the
wilderness, and in Semitic folklore. In these stories,
desert & sea were
regarded as symbols of primordial chaos; since daimons
existed before the
present cosmos, desert & sea were commonly regarded
as their natural
habitat.
Certain
Hebrew cultic practices seem to go back to primitive
measures for averting
demons. The bells on the robe of the
high priest
suggests the dispelling of demons by means of noise, like the
ringing of
bells and the blowing of the ram's horn. Incense was another means of
expelling
demons, which was developed into its use by the high priest on
the Day of
Atonement to protect himself from the overwhelming glory of
the Lord.
The
practice of smearing doorpost and lintel with sacrificial blood
at the
beginning of the barley harvest in the spring symbolized a bond
which united
god and community and guaranteed his protection against
hostile spirits.
The Israelites used it on Passover, so that the Lord would
pass over
their houses to visit death upon the Egyptians.
The practice of
wearing a blue cord on one's garment was originally a
device against
demons; blue is credited with this power in many parts of the
world.
Finally, the commandment to bind God's words upon the hand, & to let
them be as “frontlets” between the
eyes, & to place them also on the door-
posts, doubtless alludes to the
widespread custom of wearing amulets.
Specific
Demons—1st, there was Lilith,
mentioned in Isaiah 34.
She was a type
of demon who, in Mesopotamian belief, was a succuba,
who tempts men in
sexual dreams. Over time, beliefs about
Lilith blended
with beliefs about Lamashtu, who stole children and who
sometimes was
portrayed as a wolf.
2nd
was Resheph, the Canaanite god of plague & pestilence, used
in Deuteronomy,
Psalms, Song of Songs, Habakkuk, and Job as figures of
speech. These passages
represent variant traditions, which for the most
part use the association of
Resheph with winged creatures, or with fire. In
Deuteronomy 32, it is used for
an image of burning consumption. In
Psalm
76, it is used to describe whizzing arrows and means “demon shafts”; in
Psalm 78, it is used as an image of searing flame or the plague on Egyp-
tian
cattle.
The flames it represents in Song
of Songs 8, are flames of love.
In
Habakkuk 3, Resheph is paired with Debher, “Catastrophe" as
an
attendant upon Yahweh when the latter takes to the warpath. This
image is based
on the ancient notion that major gods are escorted by two
divine
bodyguards. In Job 5, the literal phrase,
“. . . and the sons of
Resheph fly aloft,” is used as an image of trouble
hovering over one's
head like birds of carrion.
Other
passages may have references to demons, but it is far less
clear whether the
word is a demon's name or a common noun.
There is
“the midday
demon” responsible for the overpowering noonday heat, or
it could be “a wasting
noonday destruction.” In Proverbs 30,
the Hebrew
speaks of a creature, possibly a vampire, who has 2 greedy & insatiable
daughters. Also, throughout
antiquity, disease and misfortune were attri-
buted to the loosing of demonic
shafts, as in Job 6 and 34, and Psalm 91.
It is probable that the “arrow that flies by day” in Psalm 91 is a
demon’s
name, or at least a form of demonic assault. The “terror in the night” of
Psalm 91 appears
in the same verse as the phrase just mentioned and
may be regarded as a
specific demon.
The word or name qeteb appearing after
Resheph is translated as
“pestilence,” but is better translated as “catastrophe.” It could also be a
demon associated with the
searing storm-wind. The Israelites are
warned
in Deuteronomy 28 that if they disobey the commandments, they will be
smitten and pursued by seven different forms of plague or pestilence,
which
suggests seven demons that were very familiar in Mesopotamian
literature. In Job 18, the wicked are “brought to the
king of terrors.”
This is best
understood as an allusion to the demonic king of the nether
world. The scapegoat dispatched on the Day of
Atonement (Leviticus
16) is said to be consigned to Azazel; many scholars take
this to be the
name of a demon inhabiting the desert.
(See
also the entry in the OT Apocrypha / Influences Outside the
Bible section
of the Appendix.)
D-22
Demons
in the New Testament (NT)—The NT
conception of
demons is identical with that which is in apocryphal and
pseudepigraphic
literature. The
existence of demons, as agents of all ills, is taken for
granted. There is, however, an important advance on
earlier ideas. The
faithful belong to
the “children of light” and are part of God’s army,
supported by God and God's
angels against the princes of darkness.
God’s authority, with which the Christ, the Son of Man, was invested, is
transmitted by grace to bearers of his message.
In
a few passages (Acts; I Corinthians 10; and Revelation 9),
daimonia means
simply “pagan deities.” The question may
be raised
whether in such contexts daimonia is merely a pejorative term
or indeed
implies a distinct order of suprahuman beings, opposed to the rule of
God,
but courted and cultivated by the heathen.
More commonly, the term
daimonia is used to denote “unclean
spirits.” Demons are expelled pri-
marily
by invoking against them the superior name of God, the name
being an integral
part of the personality, & hence of the power & “virtue”
of the one who
bears it.
The only names of demons mentioned in the New
Testament are
those of the “prince" of the devils”—Satan; Belial; or
Beelzebul. The
Destroyer mentioned in I
Corinthian 10 is an avenging angel, not a malign
spirit. Similarly, Apollyon or Abaddon, the prince of
the abyss is an angel,
not a demon; the distinction is that an angel is an
agent of, not a rebel
against, the power of God.
DEMONIAC (daimonizomenoV (day mon ih zom eh nos)) One possessed by
a Demon. The term appears 13 times in the New
Testament (NT). Such a
condition may be
associated with a mental illness which sometimes influ-
enced ailments
like dumbness and blindness. Demoniacs
were a class of
persons healed by Jesus.
The most important NT reference is to the Gera-
sene demoniac. The passage especially serves to show Jesus's power
over all uncleanness and demonic
might. In fact, a demoniac is made to
testify to Jesus as the Son of God.
DEN OF LIONS (גב אריותא (gobe ‘ah reh yaw vaw taw)) A term used
se-
veral times in Daniel 6. In keeping
with a favorite notion of ancient jus-
tice, Daniel's accusers and their families
were cast into the pit once
Daniel had been removed alive. The lions' den, was used metaphorically
for
Nineveh in Nahum 2, to suggest the grandeur of God's creation (Job
38), and to remind people that even such beasts are fed by God & live in
ways which God
has established (Psalm 104).
DENARIUS (dhnarion
(deh nar ee on)) A Roman silver coin, 3.8 grams,
coined from
268 B.C. until Jesus' time. It was the
most frequently men-
tioned coin in the New Testament, and was a day's pay for a
laborer.
DENY
(arneomai (ar neh om ahee); aparneomai
(ap ar neh oo ahee)) The
special uses of the word “deny”
include: denying Christ, in contrast to
confessing him. Peter was guilty of lip-denial. To deny the power of
godliness is to make a
lip-profession of Christianity with no correspon-
ding reality. There is also denying oneself, which means
the renunciation
of all self-interest and ambition in unreserved commitment to
Christ.
DEPOSIT Something committed to the charge of another. It may be for safe-
keeping, or it may be as a
guarantee against a debt. In I and II
Timothy
the gospel is a special deposit or “trust” granted to the disciples.
DEPTHS (מצולה (mets o
law), the depths of the sea; תחתיות (tah khet tie
yote), lowest
parts; ערכה (yer ay kaw), remotest part; baqoV (bath
os), degree; ύψωμα (ups oh ma) , very high ) In Romans 8, bathos
is used along with upsoma (height): “Nor
height, nor depth, nor any-
thing else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” bathos and upsoma may be astronomical
terms, with bathos being the space beneath the horizon when
the stars as-
cend, and upsoma being the stars at the zenith.
DEPUTY (נצב (naw tsab)) A person appointed to act for another; a
vice-
regent.
DERBE (Derbh) A city in the central part of southern Asia
Minor. Derbe and
Lystra were inhabited
by a population speaking a separate language from
nearby Iconium. The site was inhabited from 1200 B.C. to some time
before medieval times when it was abandoned.
Little
specific history is known for the town of Derbe. It must have
adopted Greek culture when the
Greeks penetrated Asia Minor. In 25 B.C.
the political allegiance of Derbe shifted several times. At first it was part
of the Roman province of
Galatia; but in the first hundred years after Christ
` the city belonged
temporarily to the Cilician kingdom of Antiochus IV.
Derbe acquired its present fame as a place
twice visited by Paul on his first
two journeys. He made many disciples at Derbe.
D-23
DESCENT (צרע (tseh rah), children, offspring;
ערב (‘eh reb),
mixed race,
foreigners; agenealoghtoV (ag
en ee ah lo ge tos), without descent or
genealogy. In another sense, מורד (mow rawd), mountain pass)
DESCENT INTO HADES The
traditional biblical view of the experience of
one's “shade” at death and
burial. The
actual phrase is not used of Christ
in the New Testament (NT), but the idea
develops out of the proclamation
of his death and his resurrection “from the
dead.”
A
descent into Hades by a divinity or hero is in antiquity a common
myth of solar
origin. Both the Near Eastern Sumerian culture & Greek
mythology contain such stories. These traditions provide
less the origin
& meaning of the NT idea of Christ's descent into Hades than
the vehicle
of its development and the cause of its degeneration.
In
NT times the Old Testament (OT) view that all go to Sheol had
only begun to be
replaced by the view that the righteous go to Paradise.
The popular belief of that time would thus
equate Christ's resurrection
from the dead with a deliverance from Sheol, where
the dead go. This is
the origin of
Christ's descent into Hades. Sheol & the Abyss were closely
related in ancient times. In turn the Abyss was closely related to the
sea.
The Abyss designated the waters
below, & soon led to associating
baptism's “descent into the water” with descent into Hades.
In his gospel,
Matthew was guided by the fact that the early church interpreted
Jesus
and his message in terms of his death and resurrection “from the dead” as
a sign. Similarly, Judaism associated Jonah and his message to non-Jews
with
his deliverance from the fish as a sign.
Matthew simply completed
the parallel to Jonah by stating that in the Jesus’
case the sojourn in Hades
that was implied in Jesus' message.
From
Luke 24 it is apparent that behind Luke there stood a tradition
of Christian
interpretation to support the “resurrection of the dead.” Acts
2:24 introduces Psalm 16: 10,
which translated from the Greek OT reads:
"Thou wilt not abandon my soul to [in] Hades.” The verse could have been
interpreted as a
deliverance from within Hades, rather than as an avoi-
dance of Hades by the
rabbis. The meaning of Christ's deliverance
from
Hades from the personified power of death is that he overcame death.
The
paradox of Christ's victory in death was early interpreted as a
conflict with
the hostile spirit-world forces. Rather
than express Christ's
victory in terms of a list of those forces, it was
indicated spatially in terms
of a three-story cosmos, with Jesus' descent into
the lowest realm and his
subsequent victory.
Since Jesus' victory over death was seen as the “first
fruits of those
who have fallen asleep,” he was brought into direct relation
with the fate of
the dead. From the 100s A.D. onward, the
primary purpose
seen in Christ's descent was to rescue the pre-Christian saints
from Hades
into heaven. The descent
could also be connected with the earth rather
than with Hades, by the
application to Christ of current Greek terminology
of a savior's descent from
heaven and ascension back to heaven.
The
early church preserved the descent motif in the early creeds by
Apelles,
Tertullian, Bishop Hymenaeus of Jerusalem, & Lucian of Antioch.
Consequently the “descent into Hades” entered
into the Athanasian and
Apostles' creed codified around 400 A.D.
DESERT (מדבר (mid bawr); ערבה (ar aw
baw), arid, remote; ישימון (yesh
ih mone); erhmoV (er eh mos)) Two Hebrew words and one Greek
word
are the ones most often translated as either “desert” or “wilderness.” Ar-
chaeological exploration has demonstrated
that so-called desert regions
were not entirely uncultivated or
uninhabited. The Trans-Jordan Plateau
deserts, near the Dead Sea, & in the Sinai Peninsula are the most fre-
quently mentioned. Midbar occurs 270 times in the Old Testament; it is
used in both literally and figuratively. In the
New Testament, eremos is
often used to refer to lonely regions visited
as places of retreat and prayer.
DESIGN (חשב מעשה (mah ‘as eh khaw shab), plot work; לחשב
כל־מחשבת(lakh shab kole-makh ash beth), to devise a
skillful work
of art; את־רעת המן (ayth-rah eth ha mawn), an evil scheme.)
D-24
DESIRE (תאוה (ta ‘av aw), longing; חמד (khaw mad),
to delight in; חפצ
(khay fets), to be pleased with; epiqumeo (ep ee thoo meh o), to set the
heart upon; qelw (thel o); to wish)
A word used in the Bible to cover a
wide range of human wants,
emotions, & cravings. It can describe
every-
thing from simple requests to sexual longing, from hunger for God to
cra-
ving for gold.
There
are human desires which are treated in the Old Testament
as natural to human
beings: hunger; sexual desire; and delight in the
beautiful and the
good. The Hebrew never saw asceticism as
part of the
good life. He enjoyed life
in all its fullness. The desires of the
Hebrews
stood under the judgment of their God.
Desire was to be subject to
obedience to the will of Yahweh.
Over
against the desire of the pious stood the desire of the wicked,
whose object
was evil. The evil one's desires would
not happen. Indeed,
he was destined to
lose desire and life itself. Yet even
religious desires
had their limits. The
pious were warned that their self-righteous security
would be destroyed by
Yahweh, who desired not outward religiosity, but
inner obedience, steadfast
love, and loyalty to God's covenant.
In
the New Testament, rarely is any human desire treated as
morally indifferent;
they are either evil, lustful, covetous, & ungoverned,
or they are
appropriate to the new life to Christ.
The world’s desires no
longer hold Christians in bondage. They take on the new desires for the
higher
gifts of prophecy, teaching, healing, but above all faith, hope, and
love. They
were to desire full Christian fellowship and to be with their Lord.
DESTINY (מני (meh nee), fortune, assigned
future) 1. The translation of the
Hebrew word meni, which
is also the name of a pagan deity. 2. Among
the ancient Hebrews the
individual’s destiny was bound up with that of the
group. One fulfilled his destiny by maintaining a
right relation with the
social unit, which included a right relation and obedience to God. Israel's
destiny was to be God’s people, to
tell of God’s mighty acts. In the New
Testament the individual’s destiny depends on their relationship to Christ
and
adherence to his teaching.
DESTROYER, THE (המשחית (ha mash kheeth); o oloqreuwn (oh ol oth
ray oo own)) A term used in Exodus
12, Hebrews 11, and I Corinthian 10
to designate a superhuman agent of
destruction.
DETAINED BEFORE THE LORD (נעצר לפני יהוה (naw
tsar life nah ee
ah doe nie)) Confined at the sanctuary, in the
priests’ custody, for some re-
ligious purpose; the meaning of this phrase is
uncertain. Doeg the Edomite
is being referred to in I Sam. 21; it may be a
purification rite, or he may
simply be a sanctuary visitor.
DEUEL
(דעואל, invocation of God) The
father of Eliasaph, who was the
leader of Gad in the wilderness. It is possible the name is spelt with a
He-
brew “r” instead of a “d.”
DEUTERONOMY (הדברים אלה (ale
leh ha daw bawr yeem), “These are
the words . . .”) The 5th book in
the Old Testament (OT) canon. The He-
brew Bible named it after its 1st clause (See
above). The name most often
used now came into use since the time of the Bible's Greek translation. It
means in Deuteronomy 17, not a repetition
of the law, but rather a copy of
the Torah to be given to the king.
Topic List—Introduction; Book of the Covenant &
Deuteronomy; Collection of Sermons; Origin; Theology;
Conclusion.
Introduction—Deuteronomy
is Moses’ farewell address. In it, he
uses the first 3 chapters to review the events between leaving Sinai &
arriving in the Land east of the Jordan.
Chapter 4 admonishes obedience
to the “statutes and ordinances”; chapter
5 relates the Sinai events, & how
Israel was unable to listen to Yahweh’s
voice.
The
great exhortation follows in chapters 6-11. It's an urgent appeal
for loyalty, for gratitude, and for
obedience. Beginning with chapter 12,
Moses begins to communicate individual legal regulations. Rules for
worship is in chapters 12-14; the
Year of Release, debtor bondage & feasts
is in 15 and the 1st half of 16; the regulation of the judges,
king, priests,
and prophets is in the second half of 16, and all of 17 and 18.
Regulations
concerning cities of refuge, laws of war, family rights,
and those of a general
humanitarian nature, follow one another in no
particular order in Chapters
19-25. The series ends with a formula of
commitment to the covenant in chapter 26.
Chapter 27 gives directions for
the building of an altar on Mount
Ebal. There is a great proclamation of
blessings & curses in chapters 28-30.
Chapter 31 reports appointment of
Joshua; the Song of Moses follows in
32 and Moses blesses the people of
Israel in 33. In conclusion, chapter 34 gives an account of
Moses' death on
Mount Nebo.
In
contrast to the first four books of the OT, Deuteronomy has
only
one source. The Deuteronomist is
present exclusively in the book of
Deuteronomy and did not have to be separated
first from the entanglement
of other source documents. The portion of other sources in the book of
Deuteronomy is minimal. There is
evidence of an older version of this
book which uses the singular pronoun being
blended with a later version
one
which used the plural. One could best
explain the composite nature
of Deuteronomy from the point of view of a gradual
expansion and
elaboration of an original Deuteronomy.
Still
another lesson is that in searching for the original Deuteronomy
one must
disregard the account of how the “book of the law” was disco-
vered (II Kings
22-23). Thus the oft-repeated laborious
attempt to untangle
the original Deuteronomy by literary analysis was the
pursuit of a phantom.
Therefore
investigation has turned to the many individual traditional mate-
rials, which
have been collected in Deuteronomy.
D-25
Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomy—A
great number of the
legal materials in Exodus 21-23, which many scholars
identify as the Book
of the Covenant, are found scattered throughout
Deuteronomy. Some 45
verses from Exodus
21-23 are either condensed, used as is, or elaborated
in Deuteronomy. Whether the circle of corresponding passages
is seen as
being smaller or larger than these 45 verses, it becomes clear how
great
the stock of legal materials is which Deuteronomy has in common with
the
Book of the Covenant.
However,
if Deuteronomy were traced back to the Book of the
Covenant, why then did it
pass over and omit over half of the regulations
found in the Book of the
Covenant. It is easy to see, where
comparison
of the versions is possible, that Deuteronomy proves to be
definitely the
younger. For instance, in
the purchase of a Hebrew slave, it is possible in
Deuteronomy for women to
enter into debtor's bondage. This must
be
connected with a change in the conditions of holding property that took
place while Israel was ruled by kings.
Also,
the law of the Year of Release once applied strictly to the
land. While the old religious terminology is
retained, the custom has
changed decidedly in that the legal effectiveness of
the “release” has been
extended to debtor's law. It is clear that, compared to the Book of the
Covenant, Deuteronomy reflects a considerably advanced stage with
respect to
economic history and especially in the use of money. If one
then is to assign the Book of the Covenant to the period between
the
immigration and the organization of the states, then this means that one
must surely go down as far as the period of the kings with Deuteronomy.
The
materials in Deuteronomy for which there is no equivalent in
the Book of the
Covenant are diverse & also obviously date from various
periods. There were regulations directed against cases
of apostasy, one of
which assumes that the initiative for apostasy came from a
city, which
wouldn't have been possible before the period of the kings. An especially
characteristic kind of material
peculiar to Deuteronomy is the so-called
“laws of war”—namely, regulations
concerning exemption from military
service, the besieging of cities, and camp
sanitation. Deuteronomy also
contains a
law affecting the King. The most striking thing about this is that
it gives, not
a picture of the office of a king in Israel, but merely a picture
of the king
as he should not be.
The
demand for worship centralization in the “place which the
Lord your God will
choose” has always been regarded as Deuteronomy’s
most important
peculiarity. While not all parts of
Deuteronomy take this
demand seriously, 6 larger units were enacted
explicitly on this assump-
tion:
altar law; tithing law; first-born law; feast law; the Jerusalem court
law; and the priest law. The extreme
manner in which Deuteronomy
demands centralization at Yahweh's one place of
worship is unknown in
Israel's early history.
But that early period was also not in danger of losing the special
character of its Yahweh-worship. The
immediate consequence of Deute-
ronomy’s demand had to be a purging of the popular
religious life.
Especially drastic was
the new regulation for the Passover’s prevailing
ling custom. It was celebrated as a feast by local family
units. Deutero-
nomy transforms Passover
into a pilgrimage feast which is to be celebra-
ted at the place of worship.
Collection
of Sermons—In the Book of the
Covenant there are
both conditional legal maxims and “Thou shalt nots,”
proclaimed to the
congregation during divine worship, and acknowledged by the
congrega-
tion in worship. Such a series
of commandments or fragments of series
are also found in Deuteronomy. What is found in Deuteronomy more
often than
these older, simpler forms are larger, complex units. The law
on the firstlings begins with a “Thou
shalt not” statement. It also inter-
prets the old regulation in light of the demand for centralization. It is not
expressed in technical legal terms,
but rather as an address or sermon.
In
additions to passages beginning with a legal maxim, there are
others, in which
there is no old legal maxim preceding the address. In
these cases the lack of old legal maxims
is not surprising, since no regula-
tions concerning kings, prophets or cities
of refuge could be found in the
old religious traditions. It would be best to speak of these as “preached
commandments.” Beginning with chapter
23, we find less and less of
this type of address, and the material changes
into a succession of many
minor individual regulations.
D-26
Deuteronomy
6-11, which precedes the Book of the Covenant,
also has clear cut, easily
separated passages. Rather than being
addres-
ses on a certain religious or legal regulation, they are compositions
which call for obedience to the “statutes and the ordinances which I set
before
you this day.” They should be considered
as speeches which
preceded a liturgical recitation of the divine commandments.
The first 1/2 of chapter 7 was originally
something like a liturgical
formula for exhortation and the promise of
blessing. This liturgical
sequence
(exhortation, commandments, blessing and curse) is repeated,
indeed, on a
larger scale in the arrangement of all of Deuteronomy
(exhortation: chapters
6-11; statement of the law: 12-26:15; commit-
ment to the covenant:
26: 16-19; procedures for the covenant’s preserva-
tion in a holy
place; 27:1-14; blessing and curses: 27:15-chapter
30.
There are some that have nothing to
do with the law. At least three such
passages have the appearance of speeches which were made to the army
before a
war.
Origin— Deuteronomy’s authors were concerned with bringing
the old religious and legal traditions back into use during their own
time.
Those to whom they addressed
themselves had already nearly outgrown
the old Israelitic regulations. These preachers are concerned with a very
broad range of topics which included: the arrangement of festivals; the
institution of kingship; the support of priests; stipulations of holy war;
and laws concerning marriage and family.
The preachers must have been men holding a religious
office. In
Nehemiah 8, the Levites are
mentioned as both instructing the people in
the law and interpreting what was
read. And according to the law of war,
a
(Levite) priest was to make a speech before the battle's beginning. In-
deed, all of Deuteronomy is influenced by a
decidedly warlike spirit,
which pervades the sermons given.
Israel
in the period before its statehood waged its wars by a
general levy, the
conscription of free peasants. The
kings changed over
more & more to carrying on their wars with mercenaries or
professional
soldiers. After 701 B.C.,
the political existence of Judah was destroyed
by Sennacherib, and he also took
the mercenaries and the specialized
warriors into his own military forces. This forced Josiah to fall back
upon the old method of conscription of the free peasants.
Since Deuteronomy must be connected with
Josiah's time, it is
natural to connect the warlike spirit of Deuteronomy with
this reorganiza-
tion and revival. It's to
be assumed that Levites, in particular, were the
representatives of this
warlike revival. Prophetic circles may
also have
had a part in it, for Deuteronomy shows prophetic influences here & there.
The
fact that Deuteronomy had gone into effect during Josiah of
Judah's (southern Israel) time of , does not mean that it must be consi-
dered a southern
tradition. There are indications which
point to an origin
in the northern kingdom.
The concern with Canaanite worship, and
especially with its being
combined with worship of Yahweh, fits much
better into the situation in the
(northern) kingdom of Israel. Deuteronomy
speaks of a free choice of kings, & there are points of agreement between
it and the prophet Hosea, who also spoke
of what a king must not do. If
of
northern origin, its date is most likely in the century before 621 B.C.
Theology—The theology of Deuteronomy,
with its many, short
sermons, had a profound effect on the religious thought of
Josiah's time.
The fact that Deuteronomy
considers itself a great authentic compilation
of the belief and statutes of Israel
demands a breakdown of its contents.
However, one may not assume that Deuteronomy seeks to fix the doc-
trine
of Israel for all time—there never was such a thing in Israel, just as
there
had never been such a compilation of the traditions of all Israel
before this
book.
Deuteronomy,
with its belief in the indivisible Yahweh, who can
be worshipped in only one
sacred place by one Israel, injected this under-
standing into a period in which
everything was in complete dissolution.
The demand for a centralized place and form of worship stems from a
theological conception of one Israel before the one Yahweh, more than it
does
from a religious or political need. The
theological knowledge that
the whole direction of history and the many
religious and legal traditions
of Israel represent only parts of one unique
self-revelation of Yahweh
was of greatest significance for the faith of those
who came later.
The
blessings of salvation promised in Deuteronomy are of this
world and to a large
extent of a material nature. Yahweh,
sovereign not
only in the shaping of history, is also the unique dispenser of
every
blessing of the earth. The Israel
of Deuteronomy is no state, but a great
religious community; Israel will not
have lost anything if it is not ruled
by a king.
Thus
Deuteronomy is Moses’ word to an Israel which is in the
latter part of its
history. Israel comes once more under
Yahweh’s sove-
reignty, in order to be claimed by God as God's people.
Deuteronomy
doesn’t demand that Israel earn its salvation by obedience; the
election
has taken place before Israel had a chance to prove itself. Deuteronomy
derives Israel’s obedience from
gratitude. However, great concern
extends all through Deuteronomy lest Israel, even after it was chosen by
Yahweh, might forfeit its salvation.
Deuteronomy in Josiah’s time
became, not a historical document, but
Yahweh's claim on and promise
to Israel.
This period must have seen itself as still being between elec-
tion and
the fulfillment of great promises.
D-27
Conclusion—Modern-day
investigation of Deuteronomy began
when the close connection between it and the
reforms of King Josiah
was pointed out.
However, it would be jumping to conclusions to seek
simply to interpret
Deuteronomy from the point of view of Josiah and
Josiah strictly on the basis
of Deuteronomy. While much of it is
practi-
cal, it also undeniably has a theoretical, if not actually a Utopian
spirit.
King
Josiah, on the other hand, certainly didn't take all his action
from
Deuteronomy. Assyria's rapid collapse must have encouraged him
to free himself of them & their gods. On the other hand, Josiah's action
against
the places of worship of Yahweh in the country and against the
places of
worship of Canaanitic deities is not to be understood on the
basis of the political
demands of this period. It was inevitable that the
king would go beyond
Deuteronomy to some extent and, also to some
extent, lag behind it.
DEVIL (שמט (say tan), adversary; diaboloV
(die ab oh los), slanderer) A
word which relates to several terms in
the Old Testament (OT), the later
Jewish writings, and the New Testament (NT). Both the Greek word
and the Hebrew word,
spelt with Greek letters, are used in the NT with
no difference in meaning.
The OT term has its origin in Hebrew judicial terminology
as the
accuser at court. In Job, he is
working in behalf of God and in no sense
as a demonic power. His judicial content is transcended as Satan
becomes
the worker of Job's misfortunes and in I Chronicles 21 the inciter of
evil.
The central understanding of the
term is of one who destroys the relation-
ship between God and humans by leading
humans to sin and seeking to
thwart God's plan.
The term is not identified with the ruler of this world.
In the NT the term is understood as God's singular & supernatural
adversary, the tempter & seducer of humans.
DEVOTED (חרם (khaw ram), devoted things) The basic meaning of the noun
is
connected with the idea of holiness, exclusion, separation, and taboo.
In Leviticus 27 a person or thing devoted to
the deity is excluded from
private use.
The kherem was especially connected with warfare. A literal
interpretation of it meant the
slaughter of everything. Every devoted thing
became the property of the
priests. No person devoted might be
spared
or ransomed. The barbarity of the
kherem was mitigated by exempting
women and children.
The Canaanites were devoted to destruction. Joshua is credited
with accomplishing their
wholesale extermination; actually this was only
wishful thinking of a later
time. In the post-exilic period the kherem
was
no longer applied as a military measure, but it was adapted as a means
of
eliminating undesirable elements from the community. It became the
vehicle by which property was
confiscated and people were excommuni-
cated.
The idea of herem persisted in apocalyptic thought. The enemies
of Israel are “devoted” to
slaughter.
DEVOUT (צדיק (tsad deek); eulabhV
(yoo la bes) sebomenoV (se bo meh
nos)) In the Old Testament, it is a synonym for
“righteous”; in the New
Testament, it means “reverent, pious, devoted to the
cult or to worship.”
DEW (טל (tal)) Condensation of water vapor from air
cooled by contact with
ground or objects which have lost sufficient heat during
the night. Dew
is important because it
is at its maximum during the almost rainless four
months of summer. Dew was believed to fall from the sky.
DIADEM (צניפ (tsaw nofe); צפירה (tsef ee
raw); diadhma (die ah deh ma))
A wreathlike crown. A turban bound to the
head by a cloth or metal band
was a characteristic type of crown in the ancient
world. “Turban” or
“miter” is more
accurately descriptive of the royal headdress of the Old
Testament period. Diadem is used metaphorically in two
ways. The Lord
will be a crown of glory
and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his
people (Isaiah 28), and Zion will
be a crown of beauty and a royal diadem
in the hand of the Lord (Isaiah 62).
DIAL (מעלות (mah ah
lote)) A device for measuring time, ascribed to Ahaz &
used by Isaiah
for giving Hezekiah the sign of the sun's shadow. Most
recent scholarship has agreed that it
consisted of a stairway whose steps
marked the time of day as the shadow of a
nearby object passed over
them. It is
now known that the Egyptians used a device of this type.
D-28
DIAMOND (יהלום (yah ha lome)) A crystallized native carbon.
DIASPORA (diaspora) A general term to indicate the widespread settle-
ment
of Jews outside Palestine. (See also Dispersion and Exile.)
DIBLAIM (דבלים, raisin cakes) The father of Hosea's wife Gomer. It is
perhaps a figure of speech. “Gomer the daughter of raisin cakes” would
allude to her past as part of a fertility cult, which involved the use of
raisin cakes and prostitutes.
DIBON (דיבון, wasting
away) 1. A city of Moab; modern Dhiban about 21
km
east of the Dead Sea and 4.8 km north of the Arnon River.
The city of Dibon was taken by
Sihon, the Amorite king. It was
taken from him by Israel & allotted to
Gad. “Dibon” occurs in Isaiah’s
& Jeremiah’s oracles against Moab. When
the Israelite kingdom became
Israel (North) & Judah (South), the Moabites
regained their independence.
Omri of
Israel recovered Moab and kept it for “forty years,” but Mesha
restored Moab's
independence and carried his conquests farther north.
Of the two mounds at Dibon, the
southern one is occupied by the
present village. The one on the north, which is more easily
defensible
because of the wadies around it is presently unoccupied; it probably
preserves the remains of Mesha's buildings.
Archaeology has discovered
an Early Bronze Age (3000-2100 B.C.) level of
occupation, but no sign
of Middle or Late Bronze Age occupation, when there was
only a noma-
dic population in the area.
There was evidence of Iron Age (1300-500
B.C.) occupation.
The
earliest excavation discovered 4 or 5 city walls. One, most
likely an Early Bronze Age wall,
was built over by some of the others. A
2nd , slightly slanted wall may be only a facing for the first. The 3rd is
the heaviest wall. It was 2.3-3.3 meters thick and built of
large, well-
squared blocks; it is thought to be from Mesha's time. A 4th,
slanted wall
was built over the first. A 5th upright wall, must have
been built in Arab
times.
In the mound’s southeastern sections,
there is a building complex
centered on a structure which was of Nabatean
origin. This building was
incorporated
into a Roman building that was longer & had a higher floor
level than the Nabatean
structure. There is an inscription that
tells of a
tower being built by the Romans around 245-46 A.D.; the tower has not
been
located. Moab was not only famous for
sheep and goats, but also
for wheat and barley as western Palestine’s “breadbasket.” Traditionally,
Palestinians would go there in
a time of famine.
DIBRI (דברי, perhaps short form of word
meaning “word (promise) of the
Lord”)
A member of the tribe of Dan; grandfather of the man stoned in
the
wilderness for blaspheming “the Name of God.”
DIDACHE (didach (di da keh), teaching) (See the entry in New Testament
Apocrypha section of the
Appendix.).
DIDRACHMA (didracmon, double drachma)
A Greek silver coin with the
value of two drachmas, but no longer
issued at the time of the New Testa-
ment.
It was the sum of the sacred tribute paid to the temple annually; its
value corresponded to a half shekel, which is how it is translated.
DIDYMUS (DidumoV, twin) An
alternative designation for the apostle Thomas,
and probably his name among
Greek-speaking Christians.
DIKLAH (דקלה, palm tree)) A son of Joktan, and hence the name of an
Ara-
bian locality, most likely an oasis.
DILEAN (דלען, place of
gourds, promontory (?)) A village
of Judah in the
Shephelah district of Lachish.
DILL (קצח (keh
tsakh), King James Version translates it as “fitches”; anhqon
(an ay thon))
The occurrence of this word with cumin clearly indicates a
kind of
seed used as a condiment or seasoning.
Its aromatic, brownish,
oval-shaped seed is not unlike caraway. It is also valued for its medicinal
value. Botanists are opposed to identifying
qezah with dill; they claim it
refers to “black cumin.”
D-29
DIMNAH (דמנה, dunghill) A Levitical town in the territory of
Zebulun.
DIMON (דימון, wasting away (See Dibon)) Some suggest that “Dibon” was
deliberately altered to "Dimon" to furnish a play on the sound of the
word
“blood”; others disagree with this
theory. It is possible the original word
is “Dimneh,” which is 4 km northwest of Rabbah.
DIMONAH (דימונה, wasting
away (See Dibon)) A town in the Negeb, near
Edom; a part of
the territory allotted to the tribe of Judah.
It is listed with
the cities of the far south that center on Beer-sheba.
DINAH (דינה, judged)
Daughter of Leah & Jacob. Dinah was
raped by She-
chem, whose father Hamor proposed that the marriage of Dinah & She-
chem be permitted and that a covenant be made between the 2 peoples.
The sons Simeon & Levi slyly agreed to the
covenant, provided that the
Shechemites consent to circumcision. Simeon attacked the city right after
all had been circumcised and slew Hamor and Shechem.
Jacob reproved
them, since their action had imperiled his safety.
This story reflects an incident in
the relations between the city of
Shechem, which became an important religious
and political center, & the
Hebrews, particularly the tribes of Simeon & Levi. It took place before
there were
kings in Israel, but its exact nature is disputed.
DINAITES (דיניא (judges)) The King James Version translates this
word as
an ethnic group's name.
The Revised Standard Version translates this
word designating a group of
people with official duties (i.e. judges).
This
group was associated with the complaint to Artxerxes regarding the
rebuil-
ding of Jerusalem by the returned exiles (Ezra 4).
DINHABAH (דנהבה)
The city of the Edomite king
Bela son Beor (Gen. 36).
DIONYSIUS (DionusioV) In the New Testament (NT), it is the name of an
Athenian, a
member of the Areopagus, a small powerful governmental
group, who was converted
by Paul's preaching and in particular his speech
in the Areopagus. It was a frequent Greek name related to a
Greek god of
vegetation, later of wine & of drama. Little is known of the NT Dionysius.
DIOTREPHES (DiotrefhV) An early Christian known only from the com-
ment in III
John 9 that he “likes to put himself first, doesn't acknowledge”
the authority
of “the elder.”
DISCHARGE (זוב (zoob),
flow freely) The normal
designation in the early
Old Testament of gonorrhea. The disease is a highly infectious, acute
inflammation of the mucous membrane of the genital tract.
DISCIPLE (למד (lim mood);
תלמיד (tal meed),
King James Version uses
“scholar”; Revised Standard uses “pupil”; maqhthV
(math eh tes)) A
learner or pupil; one who accepts and
follows a given doctrine or teacher.
In the Old Testament, talmeyd is
used in I Chronicles 25. It was
also
used in New Testament (NT) times to mean disciples of the rabbis.
Limmude was used in Isaiah 8. Like Jesus, Isaiah saw his message
rejec-
ted. He therefore determined to
entrust it to selected disciples.
Contrary to popular belief, “disciple”
is not a specific designation
for one of the Twelve; it occurs about 260 times
in the gospels and Acts,
but nowhere else in the NT. About 90 per cent of the uses either are not
limited to the 12, or are not clear as to who is being indicated. The word
was used to mean the adherent of
almost any great leader or movement.
We
read of disciples of Moses, the Pharisees, John the Baptist, & perhaps
of
Paul. Jesus’ own followers are usually
called “his” disciples.
It does refer specifically to one or
more of the 12 some two dozen
times.
Matthew is the only NT book to speak of “twelve disciples.” The
singular form of the word never occurs in
Mark. It is frequent in John,
always in
reference to a particular person (See
entry on Beloved Disciple).
D-30
It is used as the most frequent and
general term for believers of
Christ, & was used in that sense by early Christians
outside of the Bible.
John's Gospel is especially concerned to stress the inclusiveness of the
term. He distinguishes disciples from the 12 in
John 6: 66-67. In Mat.
thew & Luke the singular form is used by Jesus in teachings about disci-
pleship. In Matthew 10, the disciple can't escape
what befell the master.
In Luke
full discipleship and full Christ-likeness are the same thing.
DISCIPLINE (מוסר (mo sare); paideia
(pahee die ah)) The Old Testament
(OT) context for this “discipline”
is the family and the process of educa-
tion in the family. The Israelites did not believe in “education
without
tears.” Out of the family context this discipline sometimes meant pure
punishment. But some uses of this discipline
implied simple instruction
& correction.
The father carried responsibility for his son's education
in the
traditions of the chosen people and in the commandments of the
law. There was an easy transference from this
discipline of the family to
the discipline of God. Chastisement, no matter how severe, was to be
accepted as evidence of God's enduring love.
In the New Testament use of paideia,
“to instruct, educate, disci-
pline,” the Jewish tradition comes in contact with
broader educational
ideal of Greece. The
idea of pure punishment crops up in Jesus' scour-
ging at the hand of
Pilate. Hebrews' author returns to
the OT analogy
of the father's disciplining his son as applying to
God's use of trial and
hardship for humankind's own good.
Christian education in the home is
described in Ephesians 6:
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to
anger, but bring them up in
the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” The content of this Christian
education in
the church was to be found in the Didache.
The Apostle
Paul is an example of one who could take hardships and
adversities and
transmute them into godly discipline.
DISCRETION & PRUDENCE (טעם (tah 'am), discretion; ערמה ('or maw),
prudence, cunning; fronhsiV
(fro nay sis) The capacity to
determine
what is appropriate or what will gain a desired end. They are closely
related to the idea of the
knowledge of God, and are seen as necessary
for leading a good life and
avoiding evil.
“Discretion” is often found in
combination with “wisdom,”
“understanding,” and “knowledge.” “Prudence” is the ability to keep
from being
fooled. It is taught to the simple,
those who are easily led
astray. Prudence, as “shrewdness,” would seem to
combine serpent’s
"wisdom” with a dove’s innocence.
DISEASE (חלי (kho lee); nosoV (nos os)) Physiological & psychological
diseases may involve a degeneration of any of the bodily
tissues.
Disease may be defined as the
product of a relationship between
organisms in which one causes structural or
functional degeneration
in another, larger organism.
Among primitive races, disease was
the result of hostile
magic, or the violation of a taboo. Healing was sought from the
shaman, or
medicine man or woman. Their function
was to divine
the supernatural cause of the disease, and attempt to banish it
by
spells, charms, drugs, and incantations.
The pathological concepts
of the ancient Babylonians were governed by
the profoundly supersti-
ous nature of these ancient peoples. It was commonly believed that
these evil
spirits gained access into the body through the openings
of the head. Charms, amulets, necklaces, and nose
ornaments were
employed to protect these openings from entry by demons. It was
from this practice that feminine
adornment had its beginnings.
Although the ancient Egyptians were
far less superstitious,
they too subscribed to a demonic theory of the origin
of disease. It
was the
priest-physician’s function to determine the nature of the
possessing spirit, to
expel it through incantations, potions, and charms.
Then, they sought to repair the damage
through medical prescriptions.
Not all
diseases were regarded as coming from demonic activity.
Injuries, surgical accidents, or battle
wounds were seen as rational in
origin, and were treated by sensible empirical
surgical procedures.
Biblical
Concepts of the Source of Disease—The general view
of Old Testament (OT) writers
was that disease was sent by God as a
punishment for transgression, or an
expression of God's wrath. Spirits
were
blamed, and emotions like jealousy & self-indulgence were held
to be causes
of disease. The idea of disease as
punishment or as a
consequence of bad attitudes, survived into New Testament (NT)
times.
The Bible doesn't encourage a
theory of natural causes for the incidence
of disease; it consistently implies
that there's a psychic element in-
volved in the cause of disease.
D-31
A popular theory in the ancient
world, regarding the health of the
body involved the balancing of four fluids
or humors within the body;
these humors were blood, phlegm, yellow bile, & black bile. The promi-
nence of any one
of these humors was believed to influence one's perso-
nality in a way
characteristic of the dominant humor. A
balance was
sought between the four humors.
The Hebrews never subscribed to the
Egyptian concept of substan-
ces being channeled to various parts of the
body. Instead, they assigned
emotional
functions and attributes to specific organs of the body; there
was a conviction
that a connection existed between a specific emotional
state & the operation
of particular organs. Thus, the heart
was the locale
of intelligence, mind, & will.
There was only casual connection between
the ancient system of humoral
pathology & the concepts used by biblical
writers. Instead, scriptural authors may be seen as
anticipating the more
systematic observations of modern psychosomatic medicine.
When Jesus interrogated those who
came to him for healing, he
sought an understanding of the disease
situation. When a degree of faith
could
be recognized, Jesus proceeded, not merely to treat the physical or
mental
affliction, but to direct his therapy at the human spirit's deepest
level. Jesus recognized the role of
environment in the causes of disease,
but he primarily regarded disease as one
form of evil within the human
experience, and as such it came under the same
judgment as other “works
of the devil.”
Diseases
of the OT—The way in which disease symptoms are
described in the OT make
diagnosis difficult, especially since the oriental
manner in which symptoms
are described presents many difficulties for
the Western scientific mind. Afflictions such as dysentery, malaria, the
enteric fevers, leprosy, and tuberculosis, and epidemic diseases such as
smallpox, bubonic plague, and others, were present and more common in
ancient
times than they are now. Biblical
references to diseases were
nearly always incidental to a more important aim of
the narratives in
which they were mentioned.
Blindness was a prominent disease in
ancient times. Its causes
were many and
included climate, infection by flies, heredity, and senility
among others. It
was regarded as a divine visitation and able to be cured
only by God. A temporary form of blindness overtook the
Syrian soldiers
at the behest of Elisha; it served as a punishment, and was
removed after
a short time.
Deficiencies of hearing were
apparently common in antiquity, but
their causes were unknown. Cripples were a permanent part of Hebrew
culture, and polio was present. The
left-handed were also considered as
cripples, being spoken of as “impeded on
the right side.” The decay of
spinal
vertebrae disqualified a man from the priesthood, as did other
physical
imperfections. The affliction which
Jacob suffered after wrest-
ling with the divine messenger was most likely a
dislocated vertebral disc.
The
widespread nature of infantile disease received but scant notice
in the
OT. Bath-sheba's infant son, the
child born to the Shunammite
woman, and the son of the widow of Zarephath all
succumbed to fatal
afflictions that were either unclear or unspecified. The story of Nabal,
the first husband of
Abigail, wife of David, shows that he was probably a
chronic alcoholic whose
arteriosclerosis was such that he suffered a
seizure on learning what David
planned to do to him.
The disease from which Job suffered
has been a matter of consider-
able speculation for many centuries. Various diseases involving boils &
facial
disfigurement have been suggested, smallpox being chief among
them. The most that can be said is that it is
unlikely that smallpox was the
disease being described. Job's psychological picture may well indicate
that
his affliction was the result of a psychological condition.
Skin diseases have always been
common in oriental countries, and
they receive some notice in the OT. The instructions for leprosy's diagno-
sis as
contained in Leviticus 13, recognizes other skin afflictions besides
leprosy. The dread bubonic plague is described most
fully in I Samuel 5-
6. Although it was
not common in Palestine, it may have been the means
by which Sennacherib's
forces were decimated.
Some of the causes of death suffered
by certain kings can probably
be recognized.
David succumbed to old age, and King Asa suffered for
two years & then
died from diseased feet, most likely gout. King Uzziah
died of leprosy, & Jehoram suffered from a painful intestinal ailment for
the last two years of
his life.
The occurrence of paralysis is
seldom mentioned in the OT. The
paralysis in one arm which Jeroboam suffered was likely caused by a
cerebral
embolism or hemorrhage. In Zechariah 11,
the shriveling of the
worthless shepherd's arm was likely caused by a disease
of the spinal
cord which resulted in the hardening of spinal nerve roots. This disease
was generally the result of
syphilis.
D-32
The OT contains very few references
to actual mental disease,
despite its prevalence in the ancient Near East. Madmen were regarded
as having a peculiar
relationship with a possessing deity or demon and
were left alone by other
people. Saul most likely suffered from
paranoid
schizophrenia. The insanity
which overtook Nebuchadnezzar was a para-
noia in which his delusions led him to
imagine himself an animal & act
like one.
As might well be expected, contemporary accounts of the
mighty empire
builder’s humiliating illness are almost non-existent.
There may have been one preserved some 300
years afterwards.
The OT has recorded a number of
diseases, some fatal. Abijah,
son of
Jeroboam, died in infancy, Syrian king Ben-hadad fell ill shortly
before his
death, and Ezekiel’s wife succumbed quite suddenly to an
unnamed disease. Rachel (Genesis 35) and Phinehas’ wife died
in child-
birth. Diseases involving fever
were common in Palestine in Bible days,
the most common being malaria, typhoid,
paratyphoid, and diseases
conveyed by milk.
There was also bubonic and pneumonic plague, small-
pox, typhus, and other
fevers.
Diseases
of the NT—As part of Jesus’ healing ministry, a consider
able number of diseases
were encountered and cured. Blindness,
leprosy,
paralysis, physical infirmity, and mental affliction all came within
the
scope of his healing activity. In
cases of acquired blindness, climate,
environmental, hygienic, & psychosomatic
considerations must be taken
into account as possible causes. The leprosy which Jesus healed may
have been
something closely resembling true leprosy.
The power of
suggestion as part of the cure suggests that the skin
affliction was actually
psychogenic in nature, resulting from emotional
conflict in the subcons-
cious mind.
The gospels record several instances
of paralysis which give every
indication of resulting from a central nervous
system disease. The Caper-
naum paralytic
may have had a spinal cord inflammation, caused by
compression from an
accident or by a bone lesion; it is improbable that
they were of a psychic
nature. The centurion’s servant was most
likely
ill with acute ascending paralysis, along with spinal cord
inflammation.
The man with the withered hand may
have suffered from childhood
polio, or it may have been a form of lateral
sclerosis. The impotent man a
Beth-zatha has been regarded as suffering from loss of muscular coordina-
tion,
paraplegia, or sclerosis. The narrative
seems to indicate he had polio
as a child.
Peter's mother-in-law had probably succumbed to some form
of
malaria.
The psychogenic nature of certain
other NT diseases seems evident
from the circumstances under which they
arose. Zechariah sustained a
severe
emotional shock which resulted in deafness.
The “hysterical”
blindness sustained by Paul was clearly the result of
severe emotional
conflict. His ailment
was the psychosomatic expression of his mental &
spiritual inability to see
his way clearly. The woman with
hemorrhage
may have been suffering most likely a uterine fibroid.
Jairus’ daughter was comatose when
Jesus arrived; her illness'
exact nature was unknown. The crippled, bent-over woman's condition
included
nodules at the edges of the spinal discs; the spine becomes rigid.
The illness of the nobleman's son was
possibly cerebral malaria. Death
from unspecified diseases was recorded in the case of Lazarus and the
son of the widow at Nain. The
deaf-mute’s healing followed the use of
saliva & touch to stimulate the
sufferer’s confidence. This appeal to
senses other than hearing was an attempt to communicate the purpose
of the
activity, and thus provoke expectancy and faith.
The dropsy of Luke 14 constitutes an
abnormal amount of watery
fluid in bodily cavities or tissues. Some writers
have suggested that he had
an edema marked by swellings in the skin. The ailment is generally
neurotic in origin, and is probably an allergic reaction.
Anania's and
Sapphira's dramatic death obviously involved powerful
emotional reac-
tions, guilt being prominent.
It was probably some form of heart attack.
Luke traces the appropriate stages of recovery
in the restoration to
life of Tabitha.
Luke may have followed the same procedures that the
physician
Hippocrates did in describing illness.
In fact, he uses medical
terms to describe Herod Agrippa’s last days,
who suffered from intestinal
worms & the consuming of bodily tissue by
disease. The worms probably
caused
intestinal obstruction and Agrippa may have died from bowel
perforation. When Paul lodged with Publius on Malta, he
cured his
host's sick father (Acts 28).
The ailing man was apparently suffering
from dysentery and a fever which
may have been like a malarial fever.
D-33
Some differentiation seems to have
been attempted between
epilepsy and lunacy on the one hand and those illnesses
which included
depression and bodily disturbances, or were seen as
demon-possession.
The epileptic whose
healing was closely linked with his father's faith, is
described by Matthew as “moon-struck.” The Revised Standard Version
translation, “epileptic,”
does not tell us much more than Matthew's term.
The epilepsy may have been hereditary, or may have resulted from a
cerebral tumor, an apoplectic stroke, or a brain injury. In the case of the
epileptic boy, it is
virtually impossible to say whether he was suffering
from true congenital
epilepsy, or from emotional disturbance in the sub-
conscious mind.
Frequently found in the Far East, demon-possession
assumed the
form of characteristic personality-possession, and after the
individuals
were exorcised, they led normal, healthy lives. Demon-possession was
placed in a category by
itself, distinguished from other diseases by
certain symptoms, including
suicidal impulses. Many of the cases of
demon-possession would now undoubtedly be designated by other
terms in modern
psychiatry. On the other hand, a case
such as the
Gadarene demoniac, in which a separate personality was speaking
through the sufferer, isn't likely to be found in a modern mental hospital.
Whether demon-possession can be
explained in psychiatric terms
is difficult to say. At all events, the solution seems to
transcend the
purely physical realm of existence. Jesus saw sin in the background of
every
possessed person, indicating that there was a profound spiritual
involvement to
be reckoned with and remedied. The
nature of good and
evil which are rooted in the human personality are obscure,
making the
solution to the problem of demon-possession one of great difficulty.
The cause of Jesus' death has been
the subject of medical com-
ment. An
opinion advanced in 1874 speculates that Jesus died of cardiac
rupture. According to this view, Jesus died of a
broken heart both literal-
ly and figuratively.
Other explanations have included asphyxia, thirst,
exhaustion, & loss
of blood. The passion narratives show
the crucifixion
was one of intense emotional strain, involving as it did a
crisis in the
spiritual destiny of humanity. Compared to this, the physical
aspect is
almost trivial, but it is important in that it confirms the
intensity of the
spiritual experience.
The “bloody sweat” is a rare phenomenon noted occasionally from
the time
of Aristotle, and appearing under conditions of extreme mental
strain. The possible causes of death given above seem unlikely, given
Jesus' age and the circumstances of his death. The most probable cause
of Jesus' death seems
to be the incidence of acute dilation of the stomach.
The spear thrust would doubtless release
accumulated watery fluid under
such circumstances, and perhaps some venous
blood.
DISHAN (דישן, threshing) The 7th son of Seir; a native Horite
clan chief in
DISHON (דישון, gazelle) 1. The 5th son of Seir; a native Horite clan chief.
2. Son of the Horite clan chief Anah, and grandson of Seir.
DISPERSION (גולה (go law),
exile;פזר (paw zar); diaspora (die as po rah))
A
general term to indicate the widespread settlement of Jews outside
periods. In the Christian era's first century, there were about 2,500,000
Jews in Jerusalem and about 3,200,000
outside of the city. Starting
clockwise
in the north, there were about: 1,000,000 in Asia Minor and
northern
Syria; 1,000,000 in Mesopotamia; 1,000,000 in Alexandria,
Egypt; 100,000
further west in Cyrene and the surrounding area; and
100,000 in Italy and
Sicily.
There is no period in Israelite or
Jewish history when it may be
may said with certainty that all the Jews or
their ancestors were at home
in Palestine.
There were two principal causes of resettlement: com-
merce and war. David and Solomon sent Jews into Asia and
Africa as
government colonists and administrators, and as private tradesmen,
many of whom settled permanently.
However, the greatest cause of
dispersion was the Assyrian and
Babylonian exiles.
Outside Palestine, Babylonia was the
area most densely settled by
Jews in the Greco-Roman period. The Dispersion in Egypt was next
in
importance. Within Jeremiah's own
lifetime he ministered to the
Jews in Egypt; this indicates that there had been
a sizable Jewish popu-
lation before he arrived.
The Jewish philosopher Philo listed Phoenicia,
Syria, Coele-Syria,
Pamphylia, Cilicia, Asia Minor, Thessaly, Boeotia,
Macedonia, Aetolia, Attica,
Argos, Corinth, & various islands as being
home to many Jews. Many of them continued to pay the half-shekel
tax for maintenance of the Jerusalem temple &, indeed, traveled great
distances to participate in the great festivals there.
D-34
It seems reasonable to assume that
the Dispersion gave birth to
the synagogue. Jeremiah's advice to the exiles to pray to
Yahweh was
enough to instigate houses of prayer & study outside
Palestine. Neither
Yahwism nor Judaism
has ever held belief in a located deity; there was a
sense of “God going with
us.” Nor was this faith limited to
expression
in one language.
By the 100s
B.C., the Jews in Alexandria were able to read Scrip-
tures in Greek. Throughout the Roman Empire until the 300s A.D.
Juda-
ism was a religio licita, recognized & tolerated wherever
it was practiced.
It was respected and
its adherents for the most part were admired.
The
Dispersion was the vehicle for God's light to the nations. The early rapid
spread of Christianity must
ultimately be explained by the remarkable his-
torical faith of Judaism, which
knew not time or space.
DISTAFF (כישור (kee shore)) A stick used to hold prepared fibers from
which thread is spun. Thread could also
be spun from fibers held in the
hand or pocket. The spindle was properly held in the hands. The spindle
is a round stick made of wood,
bone, ivory, or metal, tapering at one or
both ends, with a round disk mounted
closer to one end, on which spun
thread is wound, and from which the spindle
takes its name.
DISTRICT (פלק (peh lek),
the area around; גלילה (ghel ee law), circuit; meriV
mer ece)) A
geographical area either general in designation or specific
in reference. In Nehemiah 3 the Hebrew word pelek refers
to specific
areas of Jerusalem. In
several New Testament passages, the Greek word
meris refers to specific,
larger areas.
DIVES (di vez) The
name traditionally given to the rich man in Jesus'
parable (Luke 16) of the
rich man and Lazarus; the man is unnamed in
the passage.
DIVINATION. (קסם (keh sem); נחש (nakh ash); מעונן (me 'oh
nen), cloud
diviner) A form of
communication with higher powers to elicit answers
to definite inquiries;
it was widely practiced in ancient times.
The Babylonians were the first to
develop the soothsaying art.
The objects
from which omens were derived may be classified as:
natural phenomena; and man-made
phenomena. For natural phenomena,
the ancients
turned to observing the heavenly bodies & to a lesser extent
sudden and
unexpected storms, peculiar clouds, and birth deformities.
The main field in which Babylonians excelled
was the liver inspection
of a sacrificial animal. The liver was considered the seat of the
blood
and hence of life itself. Somehow,
the Mesopotamians identified the liver
with the gods and therefore deemed it a
proper vehicle by which to divine
the will and the intentions of the higher
powers.
Before any decisive action was
undertaken, a highly trained and
specialized baru-priest was called upon
to inspect the liver of a sheep in
order to determine whether the gods were
favorably or unfavorably
disposed to the action being considered. For the purposes of divination,
the liver was
carefully mapped out, and each section was given a name.
The inspection of the liver was carefully
recorded; large collections of
liver omens have been discovered which prove the great
importance that
was assigned to this branch of divination. The common people also made
use of this form
of fortune-telling.
The meaning of the Hebrew words given
above were the most
likely original meanings.
In the Old Testament (OT) they have acquired a
wider connotation, and
they stand for the various practices of foretelling
the future by artificial
means, in sharp contrast to inspired prophecy.
Although Israelite kings consulted them, the OT considered diviners and
soothsayers to be like false prophets.
Their activities were forbidden to
Israel, and the prophets are tireless
in their uphill struggle to uproot this
evil among the people.
The objects used and the technique
employed by the Canaanite &
Israelite diviners are nowhere described in
detail. Balaam “the diviner,”
was hired
to curse Israel. He may have used the
liver inspection em-
ployed by baru-priests to divine whether the Moabite
army would be
successful against Israel.
He finally gave up trying and refused to do any
divination against
Israel. Joseph in Egypt
a liquid into a cup and
by interpreting dreams. The place name “the
Diviners' Oak” in Judges 9 would indicate that these practitioners tended
to
concentrate in certain localities.
The only direct reference to
divination in the New Testament is in
Acts 16 with the appearance of a slave
girl at Phillippi “who had a spirit
of divination . . .” Paul considered her possessed and after he
had driven
the spirit out of her body, the girl ceased to divine, and her
master lost a
source of income.
DIVINERS'
OAK (מעוננים אלון (al lone may oh
neh neem), King James
Version translate it as “Plain of Meonenim") A tree near Shechem, by
way of which men
were coming toward the city (Judge 9).
It could be
connected with the oak of Moreh, also near Shechem.
D-35
DIVINITY OF
CHRIST. The idea or doctrine that Jesus Christ is divine or
that he has a unique relationship with God without being fully divine.
The theology which became “orthodox”
and was accepted by the
Catholic Church in the 400s A.D. insisted that Christ was God. The
Gospel of
John makes such an assertion in its very first verse. Paul in
Colossians 2 says that in Christ “the
whole fullness of deity dwells
bodily.”
Whenever the New Testament (NT) refers to Jesus as Son of
God, it
asserts his divinity in some sense. The
divinity of Christ can be
regarded as a universal doctrine of the NT. Most NT writers mean sub-
stantially what the
later church meant when it spoke of Jesus as God, but
avoided the language used
by John, because they held firmly to the
Humanity of Christ as well as his
divinity.
The two writers with the highest
Christology, Paul and the author
of the Fourth Gospel, take pains to assert
that in some sense the Son is
subordinate to the Father. Christ’s divinity continues without end. And
there are some writings that can be interpreted as his divinity also having
no
beginning. A further question is whether
Paul thought of Christ as
possessing the attributes of divinity during his
earthly ministry.
Most of the NT books do not reflect
such speculations at all. The
Gospel of
Mark is not clear as to whether Jesus was always the Son of
God or that he
became the Son of God at his baptism.
Matthew & Luke
hold the belief that Jesus was the Son of God from his
conception on-
ward. However, there's no
way to discover whether any Synoptist had
the idea of the pre-existence
of the Son of God.
DIVORCE (כריתות (ker ee
thooth)) Divorce was generally
permitted,
largely on the husband’s initiative.
When a man divorced his wife, he
wrote her a “bill of divorce,” and then
sent her away. A loosely defined
reason
for divorce is that a man finds “some indecency” in his wife;
there were
different interpretations of this phrase in the Jewish commu-
nity. Childlessness was a common reason for divorce
and multiple mar-
riages. A divorced wife
might be reinstated; but if she married another,
the husband would not take her
back. The belief in the New Testament
that to marry a divorced woman is adultery comes from Matthew 5,
Mark 10, and
Luke 16.
DIZAHAB (דיזהב, of gold) A place east of the Arabah listed in
order to fix
the locality in which Moses delivered his farewell address. The site is
currently unknown. The places presently suggested make poor camp
sites, which would seem to rule them out.
DOCETISM (from
dokew (doe kay oh), to seem) A type of doctrine to the
effect that
Christ had not come in the flesh; it was a denial that the
humanity of Jesus
was more than an appearance. This kind
of teaching
pre-supposed a dualistic view according to which it would have been
impossible for a divine being to assume flesh.
This kind of doctrine
came very early to be regarded as heretical.
DOCTOR (nomofifsdksloV
(no mow dih das ka los)) Luke 5 states that,
in the house where
Jesus healed the paralytic, many doctors of the law
were seated. This is hyperbole; it is clear that Luke's “doctors”
were
scribes, those who were expert in the Mosaic law. In I Timothy 1, on
the other hand, the
expression means false teachers, or would-be tea-
chers, of the law. Paul, in Galatians, is fighting two errors: a false
imposition of Mosaic law on Christian
converts, and a false enlighten-
ment that has led to moral laxity.
DOCUMENT OR
SOURCE THEORY (See Biblical
Criticism Section of
Introduction)
DODANIM (דדנים) A
people mentioned in Genesis 10.
DODAVAHU (דודוהו, love of
the Lord) The father of an
obscure prophet,
Eliezer.
D-36
DODO (דודו, beloved) 1. Grandfather
of Tola, one of the minor judges in
early Israelite history from the tribe of
Issachar. 2. An Ahohite; the
father of Eleazar, one of
the Mighty Men known as the "Three."
3. A Bethlehemite, the father of Elhanan,
one of the Mighty Men
known as the "Thirty."
DOE (יעלה (yah al aw)) The female of the deer and of allied
animals. Both
“doe” and “roe” in Proverb
5 appear to be mistranslations. It is
best trans-
lated as “graceful wild goat.”
DOEG (דויג, solicitous) An Edomite, Saul's chief herdsman, who
executed the
85 priests of Nob on Saul’s orders.
David obtained provisions from the
priest Ahimelech, as well as
the sword of Goliath, & an oracle of
Yahweh. Summoning all the priestly
house, Saul accused them of treason in providing aid to the king's enemy.
Ahimelech did not deny that he had given to
the king's son-in-law his
assistance, but said he knew nothing of the present
rupture between the
king and David. Saul
commanded his bodyguard to slay the priests as
conspirators against the
crown. When the bodyguard refused, Doeg
slew
the 85 defenseless priests.
DOG (כלב (keh leb)) The dog was domesticated some millenniums
before
writers seem
unfamiliar with any kind of warm personal relationship
between a dog and its
master. The Bible's dogs appear to have
been the
scavenger sort. The biblical
data does not permit any conclusions about
the breeds of dogs present. The annoying habits of dogs are mentioned
several places. There is no decisive
evidence for dog sacrifice in either
ancient Mesopotamia or Egypt.
"Dog" is a term of
contempt applied to a man, an unworthy or
unappreciative person. "Dog" also designates the wicked
or a male
temple prostitute.
DOLMENS Ancient
monuments consisting of several large stones in the
form of one or more
chambers. They are found in Southern
Asia, Sou-
thern Russia, & a long crescent extending through North Africa,
Malta,
Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, and western Scandinavia. They were
erected as burial chambers, heaped
about with earth. Such dolmens
have been
found by the thousands in western Transjordan region. There
are only a few in western
Palestine. They are evidently the work
of
Neolithic people, perhaps as early as the 5000s B.C. It is probable that
the Palestinian dolmens
gave rise to the legends of the “mighty men that
were of old.”
DOMINION (רדה (raw daw), subdue, rule over; משל (maw shal);
שלטן (shol
tawn), power, empire; kratoV (kra
tos), power, strength; kurieuw (koo
ree you oh); kuriothV (koo
ree ot os), highest rank of angels) 1. The
translation of several words
implying “mastery.” It was used to
express
God’s sovereign rule, political power, mastery over nature, and sin's
grip
on humans. For Hebrews ultimate
dominion belong to God. At times it
was
shared by humans over nature, by the king, and by the saints of the
most high
after the present age.
2. As the highest rank of angels in several New
Testament passages,
kurieuo were probably originally pagan deities, considered by
the He-
brews as part of the divine council.
DOMITIAN Titus Flavius Domitianus, Vespasian’s son & successor of older
brother Titus as emperor (81-96 A.D.)
When his father became emperor, it
was planned that the throne
should go first to Titus and then to Domitian. His reign became increa-
singly autocratic,
especially during and after the year 89 A.D.
A revolt
was put down in Germany, and astrologers and philosophers
critical of
the regime were expelled.
Trials for sedition became frequent.
In the
year 95, the emperor became suspicious of his niece's husband,
whom he
put to death, and his niece was exiled.
Many others were indicted for
sedition, and on following Jewish
customs.
Since 70, the Jewish temple tax was
paid to Rome. The Emperor
was anxious to
enforce payment by proselytes as well as by those born
Jews; he may well have
investigated the Christians in this regard.
What-
ever persecution of Christians may have taken place, it was
identical to
the whole “reign of terror” in his last years and was probably reflected in
the book of
Revelation. In 96 his wife took part in
the last of a series of
plots against him, and he was murdered.
D-37
To portray Domitian simply as an
autocrat is to neglect his achieve-
ments for the Empire. He advanced a line of forts roughly 80 km
beyond
the line established by Vespasian, & he fought along the Danube ,
in Dacia,
& in Pannonia
morality. In 92 he published an economic edict
intended to increase wheat
production at the expense of wine; the edict was
later rescinded. Yet all
his merits
were wiped out by his encouragement of informers and by his
self-deification.
DOOR (פתח (peh thakh), opening; דלת (deh leth), (swinging) doors; qura
(thoo rah), (swinging) door, opening) Doors plated with metal were fas-
tened
with metal hinges. The lintel was the
beam above the door.
DOORKEEPER (שוער (sho are); qurwroV
(thoo row ros)) One who guards
door. There were special gatekeepers for the
ark. They also watched the
threshold of
the temple. This relatively humble task
would be a joy for
any servant in the house of the Lord.
DOPHKAH (דפקה,
cattle-driving) The first
stopping-place of the Israelites
after leaving the wilderness of Sin.
DOR (דור, dwelling,
revolution) A city on the
Mediterranean seacoast south of
The site was occupied for many
centuries beginning in the Late
Bronze Age (1500-1200 B.C.). The king of Dor was a member of the group
of
Canaanite kings defeated by Joshua. The
city was probably in Solo-
mon's 4th administrative district. Reference to the city outside of the Bible
indicates that it was an important coastal town for many centuries; it was-
besieged by Antiochus Sidetes at some time between 139-129 B.C.
DORCAS (DorkaV
, gazelle) A woman disciple at Joppa who was full of
chari-
table works; she fell sick, and died. Her death left widows weeping as
they
showed garments which she had made.
She was raised from the dead by
Peter.
The raising of Dorcas is notable because it's the first of such
mira-
cles by an apostle, and because it resulted in winning many believers.
DOT (keraia (ker ah ee yah)) The most minute detail. The New Testament
passages lay stress upon
the eternal and immutable character of every
detail of the Torah. Originally used of a sign of abbreviation, it
came to
mean any distinguishing mark, such as the marks indicating the vowels
to
be used with Hebrew letters.
north of Sebastia; its modern name
is Tell Dotha. Here Joseph found his
brothers, who threw him into a well and sold him to Ishmaelites following
the
ancient caravan route toward Egypt. The Syrian king laid siege to the
city in
an attempt to get Elisha.
The attractive and roomy site was
occupied from the end of the
Chalcolithic Age (3000 B.C.) to the Hellenistic
Roman period (300 or
400 A.D.). The
isolated mound, which rises to about 300 meters above
sea level, stands 53
meters above the Dothan Plain. Its top
covers about 8
football fields, the occupied slopes 12 more. A heavy Early Bronze Age
(3000-2000 B.C.)
wall appeared about 15 meters from the mound’s top; it
rose to a height of 4.8
meters. The inside surface tapered from
a 3.3 meter
thickness at the bottom, to a 2.7 meter thickness at the top. 7 different
levels of occupation were
found in the Early Bronze millennium.
At the crest of the tell, the great
Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500)
wall of the city was found. Jars were also found from this era. The area
surrounded by the Middle Bronze wall
had over 9 meters of debris and
several levels of occupation, from the Iron Age
(1200-700), through the
Late and Middle Bronze Age. Occupation was more or less continuous,
with
periodic destructions and re-buildings. A street
was used into the second part of
the Iron Age; it was uncovered to a
length of 33 meters. In both Middle Bronze and Iron Age deposits
there
were jar-burials of infants. On
the center of the tell was a considerable
area of Hellenistic and Roman
remains, most notably an acropolis with
large buildings.
DOUBLE-MINDED
(סעפים (say ay feem), doubting mind(s), diyucoV (dip
soo khos))
A term denoting uncertainty and a wavering state of mind,
implying
doubt and skepticism. In Psalm 119,
verse 113, it probably
implies half-Israelite and half-heathen. In the New Testament the Greek
word dipsuchos
is related to doubt and wavering in prayer.
It indicates a
wavering between faith & the world. Such an attitude results in prayers
going
unanswered. Jesus criticizes a similar
state of mind in those who
try to serve two masters.
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DOUBLE-TONGUED
(dilogoV (die lo gos)) A word of uncertain meaning,
occurring
only in I Timothy 3. The meaning “double-tongued”
suggests
a lack of sincerity and integrity.
DOUGH (בצק (baw tsake); עריסה (ar ee
saw), coarse meal; furama (fuh
ra ma)) A mixture of flour or
meal with water, kneaded in a wooden basin,
or kneading trough. The usual grains were barley and wheat;
spelt, oats,
and rye were also used. In
the Old Testament, the Hebrew word arisah
could mean “coarse meal,” or
it could imply that the first fruit of the
kneading trough must be offered, as
well as the first fruits of the threshing
floor. In the New Testament, “dough” is used
figuratively to represent
the converted state of Christian faith.
DOVE (יונה (yo naw); peristera
(peh ris te rah)) A term rather loosely
applied to many of
the smaller species of pigeon. Its
powers of flight, its
eyes, and its loyalty to its mate are some the figurative
uses that are made
of the dove in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, and especially
the
gospels, the Spirit of God is said to have descended “like a dove.”
DOVE'S
DUNG (חריינים (khar ay yo neem))
During the siege of Samaria
this material was sold at exorbitant prices. Vergil and other classical
authors also note
the use of it as food under dire circumstances.
DOWRY (זבד (zeh bed)) Ordinarily,
the property a wife brought to her
husband in marriage, perhaps in the form of
a gift from the father to his
daughter.
In the early period it is probable that the father gave the bride
a
maid-servant as a dowry. Examples of
dowries include springs of water,
and a city by the pharaoh when his daughter
married Solomon. This
practice shows
that a wife could hold property in her own right.
DOXOLOGY (doxologia) A formula for expressing praise to God. In Jewish
services these blessings were recited
at the end of hymns. They are con-
nected with the Pesach ritual & with the
building of the booths in the Feast
of the Tabernacles. They protect the speaker from God's
punishments of
human sin. The object of
the doxology in the Christian congregations was
God, seldom Christ, although it
was sometimes “God through the Son.”
This formula was changed, in opposition to Arianism, to “and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit.”
DRACHMA (dracmh) The unit of silver coinage of Greece
At the time of the New Testament it was equated with the Roman denarius,
which was called “drachma” by the Greek world.
DRAGNET (חרם (kheh rem),
devoted to destruction) A net dragged along the
river bottom or on the
ground.
DRAGON In
several poetic passages of the Old Testament reference is made
to a primordial
combat between Yahweh and a draconic monster, called
either Leviathan or
Rahab. This combat was to be repeated at
the end of
the present age, according to Jewish speculation.
DRAWERS OF
WATER (שאבי־מים (sha 'ah by-may yeem)) One of the lowest
classes of
servant. But such servitude is
preferable to death. Women
drew water as
part of their domestic chores. Young men
also might draw
water as well as other duties.
These drawers of water are least in the
listing of the covenanting
people.
DREAM (חלם (khaw lem); פתר (paw thar),
interpret dreams; onar (on ar))
Dreams, or “visions of the night,” were
considered in the ancient Near
East as messages emanating from supernatural
powers, and great impor-
tance was attached to their contents and
interpretation. Frightful and
nightmarish dreams were seen as the work of sorcerers and evil spirits.
Kings sometimes tried to induce dreams by
passing the night in a temple
in the hope of receiving a revelation in a night
vision; this was known as
incubation-dreams.
Jacob's dream at Bethel is an example of an uninten-
tional
incubation-dream, as he did not know it was a holy place.
The dreams reported in the Bible may
be classified as simple
dreams, in plain language, or as symbolic dreams, which
could only be
resolved by professional interpreters. The Old Testament recognizes
that all night
visions proceed from God, and God's assistance is sought
in interpreting
them. False prophets based the truth of
their announce-
ments on receiving divine dreams; to true prophets these were
lying
dreams. While great weight was
attached to dreams, it was also as-
sumed that some dreams were of no
consequence.
D-39
DRESS AND
ORNAMENTS
אדרת ('ad deh reth), mantle; מד (made), clothes;
אזור ('ay zore), girdle, belt; מעיל (meh eel), fancy coat
בגד (beh ged) clothing; סדין (saw deen), wrap-around
גורה (khag ore), girdle; undergarment;
טבעת (tab bah ath) עדי ('ad ee), ornaments
ﬤסוﬨ (kes ooth), covering; פאר (peh ayr), ornamental
כתנת (koot toe neth), undergarment headdress
שמלה (sim lah), wrap-around
garment
zwnh (zoe neh), girdle
imation (ee ma tee on);
stolh (sto lay), long robe; )
citwn (key tone), undergarment;
The Hebrew word beged is the
most widely used term to refer to
any whole garment. There are inner, outer, cultic, mourning, and
royal
garments. Garments might be made
either of linen or wool, but not a
mixture of the 2. The same general terms
are used for women's clothing
as for men's.
Many garments were simlah or wrap-around garments.
This word designates the sojourner’s & the
poor’s clothing, & is simply
a large sheet wrapped around the body. In the
New Testament (NT),
imation is the Greek word used for “garment.”
The most common Hebrew word for “undergarments”
is kutoneth.
They are draped over
one shoulder, leaving the other shoulder bare.
Generally wool was the material from which the tunic was made,
especial-
ly for the poor, though linen was used for those of priests & some
others.
The waistcloth or loincloth was
another undergarment. Breeches or
drawers are mentioned only in connection with priestly vestments, made
of
linen. In the NT, the most
common Greek word for undergarment
was chiton.
The Hebrew mey'il was
obviously an outer garment and part of the
dress wardrobe of men. They were
often embroidered & were the garment
rent in times of distress. Women also had such garments, & veils of vary-
ing lengths for covering the face or for the upper part of the body. The
linen ephod of the regular priests was a
simple white linen priestly robe.
Kings and prophets wore a mantle (addereth). Elijah had one, and
it played a very
important role in his activities; it was the sign of the
prophetic office. It was made of animal hair; goat's hair is
implied; John
the Baptist's mantel was of camel hair. The robe put on Jesus as mockery
was the
Roman soldier's mantle.
For warmth and maneuverability the
flowing garments required a
girdle (khagore); soldiers used them to
carry their swords. There was also
the linen sash of the priest. In the NT girdles were called zoneh, & were
also used to hold in the flowing robe and as a money belt.
Mention of ornamental headgear is
relatively rare in the Bible; both
men and women wore them. The most common Hebrew word is pe'ar.
Shoes were worn by both men & women, but
very little mention is made
of women's footwear. One of the special ornaments
for men was the finger
ring which signified rank. Some used rings pressed in melted wax to seal
documents. Saul wore an armlet.
One of the most complicated subjects
dealing with the dress of
women is that of ornaments. The necklace was much desired & was often
quite elaborate & complex. Women also
wore anklets, bracelets, earrings,
frontlets, nose rings, and finger rings.
DRESSER OF
SYCAMORE TREES (בולם (bo lem)) Amos claims this as
his profession before he
began to prophesize. The term refers to someone
who prunes or nips back the trees for better yields of fruit.
DRIED
GRAPES (יבשים ענבים (‘ay naw
beem yaw bay sheem)) Grapes
dried in the sun were listed as
food forbidden to a Nazarite.
DRINK In
Biblical times the chief liquids consumed by humans were wine,
milk & water. In addition to these, vinegar was used as a
thirst-quenching
beverage. Drink as such
is not condemned in either the Old Testament or
the New Testament. In Ecclesiates, Koheleth claims that there is
nothing
better for a man than to eat, drink, and take pleasure in his
work. Paul,
on the other hand, says that
“the kingdom of God does not mean food &
drink but righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
DROMEDARY (כרכרות (kar kaw roth)) A swift riding camel belonging to the
Arabian (one-humped) species. Since the
time of Aristotle the distinction
has been made between the 2-humped Bactrian
camel and the 1-humped
Arabian camel.
These camels are divided into those which carry burdens,
and those who
carry riders the latter being commonly known as the
dromedary.
D-40
DROPSY (udrwpikoV (oo dro pih kos))
This condition involves too much
water in the tissues or cavities of
the body and is a symptom rather than a
disease. It is always indicative of
advanced organic disease. In Luke 14
the
condition probably came with cardiac, renal, or hepatic disease.
DROSS (סיג (seeg), refuse) The impurities of metals, particularly of
silver,
which accumulate in the smelting furnace. Silver “turned to dross” is an
outcome of
debased morals.
DROUGHT (בצרת (bats tso reth); חרב (kho reb)) Disastrous consequences
of a shortage of rain, which in a dry year
may fall to 1/2 the barely suffi-
cient normal. A prolonged and complete drought
would have made Pale-
stine almost uninhabitable. The Bible refers to the regular summer
drought, which last four months.
DRUNKENNESS (שכור (shik kaw rone)) Wine was not banned in Israel. It
was valued for giving pleasure and banishing
sorrow, and it had a place
in the sacrificial meal. Drinking to intoxication was a disgrace. Drunken-
ness is associated with
licentiousness. The prophets condemn it
in the
leaders of the people for causing moral blindness. In the New Testament
too, drunkenness is
associated with debauchery and Gentile depravity. A
bishop may not be intemperate.
DRUSILLA (Drousilla) The third and youngest daughter of Agrippa I,
engaged
to marry an Epiphanes. Because Epiphanes
promised to embrace
Judaism, but later refused to convert, the marriage did not
take place.
Felix, procurator of Judea,
saw Drusilla & fell in love. Felix
sent a friend,
who prevailed upon Drusilla to transgress Jewish customs & marry Felix.
She is mentioned in Acts 23
and 24.
DUALISM A
term used since the beginning of the eighteenth century for 2
different
systems. The first was cosmic dualism,
which was a belief in 2
essentially equal and opposing gods: Ahriman
and Ormazd. The second
type of dualism
was metaphysical and was concerned with the quite
incompatible natures of body
and soul. The body was the prison house
and sepulcher of the soul, imprisoning it and defiling it as well. Salvation
consisted of effecting the
permanent release of the soul from the body,
which required many reincarnations. Associated with this view was the
belief that
the world of matter was itself imperfect, if not evil.
There are few traces of
cosmic dualism in pre-exilic Judaism.
Yahweh, creator & governor of the world & humankind, was directly or
indirectly responsible for all evil, as well as for all good. Satan, if men-
tioned at all, was an agent of
God, not his equal & not his opponent. In
the exilic & post-exilic periods Satan became the opponent of both God
& humans, their oppressor & the cause of sin & wickedness. But Yahweh
is actually in control; Satan & evil exist only because God is permitting
them to do so for a while. Metaphysical dualism of spirit and flesh hardly
appears in Judaism. Humans were
created with good & evil impulses, but
this was as far as dualistic thinking
went in Jewish anthropology.
Christianity's cosmic dualism was
from Judaism. There was a
general though
not complete acceptance of a belief in Satan as evil's inde-
pendent personification. Through its Greek heritage
Christianity also
acquired a belief in metaphysical dualism. For the apostle Paul the body
of flesh, with
its desires, was evil and the cause of both sin & death. The
resurrected body was not of flesh and
blood, but a spiritual body.
Christian Gnosticism inherited metaphysical dualism from Greek
sources.
The soul’s release was gained through ascetic practices, mystic
rites,
and a secret, saving Gnosis, or knowledge.
Gnosticism, however,
seems to have allowed for but one
incarnation. Metaphysical dualism as
accepted by Christianity prepared the way for Christian asceticism and
monasticism.
DUMAH (דומה, silence) 1. A
son of Ishmael, and the presumed ancestor of
an Arabian tribe, most likely from
the region halfway between the head
of the Gulf of Aqaba and the Persian Gulf. 2. A city in the mountains
of Judah, 9.6 km
southwest of Hebron, mentioned at the end of Joshua 15.
D-41
3. A name which occurs in Isaiah 21 as part
of “the oracle of
Dumah.” The Greek Old
Testament indicates that the word is “Edom,”
which the rest of the verse refers
to, so it is possible that there was a
scribal error. Also, since “dumah” can also mean
silence, the word could
refer to the enigmatic nature of this oracle, which
really gives no answer
at all to the question.
DUNG (גלל (gal lawl), (dung) balls; גל (gal),
(dung) heap; דמן (doe men);
פרש (peh resh))
Animal, bird, or human excrement, often used for
manure or fuel.
In ancient times, as today in
Palestine, dung was gathered, dried,
and used for fuel when wood & charcoal
were scarce. The term “dung”
was also
used symbolically to indicate the degraded end to which a
person or nation
might come.
DUNG GATE (שער האשפת (shah ar ha 'ash poeth)) A gate of Jeru-
salem, leading into the Valley
of Hinnom; one of those restored by
Nehemiah.
DUNGEON (בור (bore), pit) The meaning of the Hebrew suggests that it
was a sunken room or a dry well.
DURA (דורא, dwelling) A valley in
the province of Babylon. Dura is a
common place-name in ancient Mesopotamia and the identification of
it must
remain uncertain.
DUST (אבק (aw bawk); דקק (daw kak); עפר (aw fawr), dry earth;
koniortoV kon ee or tos)) The most significant use of awfar occurs
in the dominant Old Testament view that humans are earthly creatures
animated
by the breath of God. Of dust humans
were made, and to dust
they return.
DWARF (דק (dak), small) One category of those physically
disqualified
from the ministry of sacrifice.
DWELLING
PLACE (מושב (mo shawb); מקום שבת (ma kom sha
bot) and
מכון שבת (ma kon sha bot), place
of rest; (maw ‘een); משכן (mish
kawn), tabernacle; katoukhthrion
(ka too keh teh ree on)) Many
words are translated by this phrase
in the King James, Revised, and
other versions; there is little consistency in
translation. The Hebrew
word mishkan
is the word for tabernacle, applied to the one built during
the Exodus.
DYEING (טבול (ta bool)) Dyeing
is an ancient art and played a necessary
and important role in the lives of
Palestinians throughout the biblical
period.
The Phoenicians apparently guarded the secret of making purple
from
mollusks so that the rest of the ancient world had to purchase from
them. Dyeing was carried on in centers which
presumably represented
the concentration of a guild. Physical factors such as grazing land & an
abundant supply of water helped determine the location of these centers.
The dyeing operation itself is not
well known from ancient times.
Homes
devoted rooms roughly 3 by 6 meters to dyeing, showing that it
was a domestic,
but well organized industry. Each room
was arranged
with 2 round stone vats with small openings on top & retrieving drains
around the rims.
Occasionally an additional jar-vat was set into the
bench; storage jars
containing lime or potash for fixing the dyes stood
close by. Thread was dyed rather then whole cloth,
judging from the
size of the mouth of the vat; multicolored cloth could be
woven from the
threads. The normal
process required 2 baths, & then drying the thread.
Similar Iron Age (1200 B.C.)
installations were found at Bethshe-
mesh and Tell en-Nasbeh. A Greek dye plant found at Gezer indicates
that the fundamental arrangement had altered little in the intervening
centuries. Stone vats have given way to large masonry
tanks. A furnace
in the cellar of the
Gezer plant points to the use of hot dyes.
Other
places in Gezer from the same period having tubs may have been
con-
nected with dyeing or may have been used for laundry or bathing.
DYSENTERY (dusennteria) A painful, inflamed condition of the colon.
The causes were from bacteria or from
single-celled creatures; it could
be acute, chronic, epidemic, or
sporadic.
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