H-He

      H

H.  The abbreviation biblical scholars use for the “Holiness Code,” which
        designates a legal section of Priestly material in Leviticus 17-26, most
        likely written sometime either side of 700 B.C.

HAAHASHTARI (האחשתרי) A family of the tribe of Judah. 

HABAIAH (חביה, whom the Lord protects) An ancestor whose name became

        the name of a family of returned exiles claiming priestly descent, but 

        unable to document their claim, and therefore denied priesthood rights.

HABAKKUK (חבקוק, embrace) A cultic prophet of Judah who lived during 

        the last days of Josiah (640-609 B.C.) and under the reign of Jehoiakim 

        (609-598 B.C.). The book by that name is 8th among the minor prophets

        in the Old Testament canon.
                   The origin of the name Habakkuk is uncertain. The prophet may

        be the same one mentioned in the Apocryphal Bel and the Dragon as “the

        son of Jesus of the tribe of Levi.” (See also the Habakkuk and the Bel &

        the Dragon entry in Old Testament Apocrypha/ Influence Outside the 

        Bible section of the appendix.) Based on this, he may be linked to the 

        priesthood.
                   Many scholars consider the book to constitute a unity, possibly a

        liturgy for a day of penitence. The Dead Sea Scrolls copy of this book 

        does not include chapter 3. Direct divine utterance, spoken through the

        mouth of an official and authorized mediator or cultic prophet, had its 

        place within the liturgy of any particular day in ancient Israel's cult. It 

        fell to the temple prophets in the cult of Judah to attend to the position

        of the temple singers. 

                   The cultic songs associated with the rituals of lamentation, while

        sung in the congregation’s name, would actually be rendered by profes-

        sionals, because not many of the common people were at home in the 

        appropriate ritual details. The songs were not sung with music books 

        before them, but from memory. It is likely that most of the songs come

        from the hearts and minds of the men who belonged to the profession 

        of temple singers. If the prophet Habakkuk was such a prophet, he was

        very familiar with cultic compositions.

                   Following the title comes the prophetic lament. The date is appro-

        ximately 598 B.C. The first destructive blow of the Babylonian might has

        fallen upon Judah. Here is sounded the note of national lamentation: “O 

        Lord, how long?” Habakkuk sees, taking place before his very eyes, and

        seemingly ignored by God, destruction and violence on a vast scale. Law

        has surrendered to force, so that righteousness has no opportunity. The 

        wicked are strong enough to throttle the power of justice.
                   But what is taking place in history has meaning. The prophet 

        discerns that it is the mighty God who is using the powerful Chaldean 

        nation set on world conquest. No one lacking faith could see anything 

        good for Judah or for the entire Near East in what was being done by the

        Chaldeans. One is not surprised at Habakkuk’s protest to God. He is 

        convinced that the Chaldeans express upon Judah the Lord’s judgment 

        and the Lord’s chastisement. But how can this be? How can the Lord 

        permit the Chaldeans to sap Judah’s strength?
                   Habakkuk evidently had a high retreat to which he was accustomed

        to go, where he might brood over his problems and await God’s message

        in such an hour when he desperately needed light. He designated his 

        retreat as “the tower,” to which he went to await in eager spiritual recepti-

        vity Yahweh’s word. The content of it was to be an abiding truth which 

        one must wait for in spiritual sensitivity and with hushed eagerness of 

        expectation. His revelation came in two simple parts. First, “He whose 

        soul is not upright in him shall fail (i.e. the nation or person that proceeds

        upon a policy that is not erect, upright, honest, just, or morally straight, 

        shall fail. The second part is “The righteous [be it nation or person] shall

        live by his faith.”

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              Habakkuk lifted against figures of arrogant, wealthy oppressors a

        series of five woes.  The 1st woe deals with Nebuchadrezzar’s lust for

        tribute.  The 2nd lifts into the open the purpose of the Chaledan pillage

        and plunder—to make the empire so strong materially that no nation 

        would dare challenge it. The 3rd focuses upon the Chaldean oppressor's 

        cruelty.  The 4th solemnly teaches that the Chaldean dealings toward his 

        neighbors in merciless power will rebound upon the Chaldean nation. 

        The 5th is a rebuke to the Chaldean worship of their gods, Bel, Shamash,

        and Marduk.  He contrasts the man-made idols with the invisible but 

        potently present Lord in his holy temple, before whose majestic face the

        entire earth is summoned to awed silence.     

                   Among the Dead Sea Scrolls there is a Habakkuk commentary,    

        which neither contains nor refers to chapter 3.  This supports the view 

        that this chapter was not part of the original book.  After an opening title

        which designates the chapter “a prayer of Habakkuk . . .”, comes a majes-

        tic poem on Yahweh’s advent. The poet remembers Yahweh’s work, & he 

        pictures the holy God coming from Teman in Edom.  God’s destructive 

        power is pictured in mythological terms.  As Yahweh battled with chaos,

        now it is with the destructive Chaldeans that the mighty God is angry, as

        God goes forth to save his people.  The prophetic liturgy & the psalm con-

        clude in triumph.  It is trust in God, a magnificent expression of faith's vic-

        tory over all misfortune.                                      

                   The three chapters of Habbakuk is filled with truths which stand at 

         the core of Hebrew religion:

                                                                                                                       
   History has meaning if one takes        God can overrule an evil nation for
         the long view.                                        for God’s righteous purpose 

         Uprightness in the soul is neces-        Evil is bound to finally fail, even 
          sary for individuals & nations.             though it may seem victorious.  

         The righteous shall live by faith.          Wealth is treacherous as basis of 
    Trust in God is only sure basis of              human dependence for security.
         strength, regardless of external      Ruthless dealings rebound upon 

               situations.                                              the doer.    

          Faith’s ultimate joy is communion

               with God.                      

HABAZZINIAH (חבצניה) Grandfather of the Rechabites who were tested by
        Jeremiah.

HABERGEON (שריון (shir yone), coat of mail) The King James Version

        translation of shuryon (See Biblical entry for Coat of Mail). Armor originally

        for the neck and shoulders but later reaching to the thighs or lower.

HABIRU, HAPIRU. The name of a group of people. The 2 versions stem from

        the fact that the word is from the Ugarit language, in which b and p are 

        interchangeable. The word seems originally to have been the denotation

        of a social class, though this is very uncertain.

                   The Habiru's earliest occurrence is found in texts dating from the

        Third Dynasty of Ur (roughly around 2050 B.C.). After that they are men-

        tioned in texts from all important archives in the Near East. The Habiru

        often appear in the service of one king or another, & more particularly

        in many cases as soldiers. Some Habiru people have West Semitic 

        names, but some have Akkadian or even non-Semitic names. Such facts

        have led scholars to believe that Habiru is not an ethnic term but rather 

        denotes some kind of social group. They seem to occupy a position be-

        tween the free citizens and the slaves.

                   But there are texts where “Habiru” seems to have more to do 

        with an ethnic group. In the Amarna Letters the Habiru people appear

        as a separate ethnic group with West Semitic names. The most likely 

        reason is that the word may originally have been used to indicate a

        social class, and eventually it developed into an ethnic term. In that 

        case we may compare “Habiru” with “Canaanite,” which also originally

        may have denoted a social class. Where Abraham is called “the Hebrew”

        (Genesis 14), the term could be either social or ethnic. Generally the

        term “Hebrew” in the Old Testament is an ethnic term. It seems proba-

        ble that Habiru is an Akkadian form related to the Hebrew form. In all 

        probability, the Hebrew people were a branch of the Habiru.

HABOR (חבור, strong) A tributary of the Euphrates, flowing into the latter 

        from the northeast. Some of the Israelites were exiled to the banks of the

        Habor by Shalmaneser in King Hosea’s ninth year.

HACALIAH (חכליה) The father of Nehemiah.

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HACHILAH (חכילה) A hill in the Ziph neighborhood where David took refuge

        when pursued by Saul. It is in the neighborhood of Hebron, but the site has

        not been identified.

HACHMONI (חכמוני , wisdom (?))      1. The family of Jashobeam, one of 

        David’s Mighty Men.       2. The family of Jehiel, a servant of David.

HADAD (הדד, thunderer(?))       1. The eighth son of Ishmael (Genesis 25).      

        2. A king of Edom (Genesis 36).      3. Another king of Edom (Genesis 36).

                   4. A member of Edom’s royal house who escaped to Egypt when 

        David conquered Edom, and later revolted against Solomon. There is a 

        theory that I Kings 11 combines 2 accounts, one of Hadad the Edomite &

        one of Adad the Midianite. Convincing reasons have been given for identi-

        fying this Hadad with #3 above. 

                   5. The ancient Semitic storm-god who as the great Baal of the Uga-

        ritic pantheon figured in the struggle of Israel's religion against Canaanite

        religion.

HADADEZER (הדדעזר, whose help is Hadad) A king of Zobah, defeated by 

        David, who extended his control as far as the Upper Euphrates. The con-

        flict between Zobah and Israel had begun in the reign of Saul.
                   The Old Testament preserves 3 accounts of campaigns by David

        which involved Hadadezer. 1st, in II Samuel 10, a coalition of Aramean

        rulers who had come to the relief of the besieged city of Rabbah were

        defeated by Joab. 2nd, in the same chapter a battle is described at Helam

        between David and a new army of Hadadezer under Shobach; this army

        was also defeated. 3rd, in Chapter 8, another defeat of Hadadezer is 

        described “as he went to restore his power at the river Euphrates.” Some

        critics think the above are all different events; others feel that the 

        second and third deal with the same series of events.

HADADRIMMON (הדדרמון, thunderer, pomegranate, also the names of 2

        Syrian deities.) A deity for whom public mourning was made in Pale-

        stine 's great central plain by Megiddo. It was probably a rite which

        had its mythical counterpart in the mourning for the dead Baal by his

        sister, the goddess Anat.

HADASHAH (הדשה, new) A village of Judah in Shephelah district of Lachish;

        identification remains uncertain. 

HADASSAH (הדסה, myrtle) Either original Hebrew name of Esther or the 

        Akkadian title of bride given to her.

HADID (הדיד, sharp) A town of Benjamin overlooking the coastal plain at

        the Shephelah's northwest extremity, about 5.5 km northeast of Lydda.

        It constituted the ancestral homeland of more than 720 exiles who re-

        turned from Babylonia. All Old Testament references to the site are 

        post-exilic.

HADLAI (הדלי, forsaken) An Ephraimite person or family.

HADORAM (הדורם, honor)    1. An Arabian tribe, called the first-born of 

        Joktan.      2. Son of Tou the king of Hamath.      3. An official of King

        Rehoboam who was in charge of the forced labor.

HADRACH (הדרך) A town in the northwestern part of Lebanon.

HA-ELEPH (האלף, the friend, the thousand) A city in Benjamin, whose 

        name should probably read “Zela-ha-eleph,” and is perhaps modern

        Salah, between Jerusalem and Gibeon.

HAGAB (הגב, locust) Head of a family of Nethinim among the returned exiles.

HAGABAH (הגבה, locust) Head of a family of Nethinim among the returned 

        exiles; evidently to be distinguished from Hagab.

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HAGAR  (הגר, flight)  The maid whom Sarah gave as a concubine to Abraham

        and who became the mother of Ishmael.  The Hagar stories have been   

        preserved primarily by the Jahwist writer and the Elohwist writer, with a 

        few verses from the Priestly writer.  

                   In the first story Hagar is identified as barren Sarai's Egyptian 

        handmaid, given to Abram for children.  When Hagar became pregnant,

        she assumed an arrogant attitude that infuriated her mistress.  With 

        Abram’s permission, Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled into 

        the wilderness of Shur.  At a spring the angel of Yahweh appeared to 

        announce that she was to bear a son from whom would come a multitude

        of descendants and whose name was to be Ishmael (“God has heard").  

                   The second story presumably occurs several years after Ishma-

        el's birth. Sarah was seized by the fear that Hagar might become an heir

        alongside her own son.  She demanded the expulsion of Hagar and Ishma-

        el.  Hagar fled to the dry Wilderness of Beer-sheba, where God's  angel 

        showed her a well.  He assured her that Ishmael wouldn't die but would

        become a great nation.  Ishmael grew up to live in the Wilderness of 

        Paran, to become an expert with the bow, and to marry an Egyptian 

        woman.  The Hagar traditions reflect the Hebrews' belief that they were

        related to the wild, warlike Bedouin peoples to the south of Palestine. 

        They both had Abraham as father, but their ancestral mother, of course,

        was the inferior concubine Hagar.                

                   In the New Testament, Paul makes allegorical use of the Hagar 

        story. Hagar & her son stand for the slavery of the covenant, in contrast

        to the freedom of the new covenant typified by Isaac.

HAGGAI  (הגי, celebration) The tenth in the series of 12 short prophetic books

        which forms the final section of the Old Testament (OT). 

                   His name would suggest that the prophet was born on some feast

        day.  He would appear to have been a conspicuous figure, & Jewish tradi-

        tion has it that he was known as a prophet in Babylon during the Exile.  

        On the evidence of the very 1st verse he was active in Jerusalem in 520 

        B.C.  He doesn't appear to have been of the priestly caste, since he asks 

        the priests’ guidance. 

                   If he witnessed the temple before its destruction in 586, he was a 

        very old man when he became one of the prime movers for its restoration

        in 520.  In association with Zechariah he rouses the people of Jerusalem 

        and their leaders to undertake this task.  The work of restoration was be-

        gun almost immediately after his first appeal. It later tradition Haggai was

        associated with Zechariah and Malachi as joint founder of the the “Great 

        Synagogue.”

                   Haggai is the first of the collection of prophecy dating from the post-

        exilic period, the others being Zechariah & Malachi; Haggai is the shortest.

        Its two chapters are made up of four utterance delivered within the space of

        4 months in 520 B.C.  Haggai is referred to throughout in the third person

        & is described impersonally as “the prophet.” Moreover, the book serves as

        a record of the effect of the prophet’s words, & as a collection of his utter-

        ances.  The general view is that compilation was done by some unknown

        disciple not long after the time at which the oracles were first delivered.

                   According to the Cyrus Cylinder text, when the victorious Persian 

        king had taken possession of the Babylon’s territories, he gave general per-

        mission to minorities exiled there to return to their own countries if they 

        wished.  Contrary to the Chronicler’s rosy picture it seems more probable

        that only some Jews chose to go back, & that their first task was to eke out

        some kind of existence in a devastated land.

                   Under the leadership of Shesh-bazzar, “prince of Judah” & first ruler

        of what was now the Persian province of Judah, the repatriated exiles laid 

        the foundations of a new temple amid Jerusalem's ruins. It's more probable

        that the Chronicler, writing his narrative over 2 centuries later, has given an

        idealized account of what actually happened, to which the more sober con-

        temporary evidence of Haggai & Zechariah lends no support. Both of these

        writings tend to confirm that it was not until the emergence of Haggai as an 

        inspired leader that any serious steps were taken to restore the dilapidated

        temple.

                   Many Jews had preferred to remain in Babylon, including those who

        had established themselves most successfully.  Those who returned didn’t

        possess abundant means, and whatever zeal they had for the house of the

        Lord’s restoration was tempered by finding themselves among people who

        had become reconciled to the sight of the ruined sanctuary. The whole area

        with its courts would still be available as a sacred place for those who 

        wished to worship.  There is evidence that an altar for burnt offerings was 

        in use.  There are other indications that pagan cults had established them-

        selves side by side with Yahweh's worship.

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                   Economic conditions must further have lowered the morale of those

        who were left among the fragments of the Jewish state.  The picture drawn

        by Haggai is of a people crippled by a succession of bad harvests & subse-

        quent poverty, so the period before Haggai’s emergence as a leader can't

        have been anything other than a dispiriting struggle for existence.  When

        Darius I succeeded Cambyses as ruler of the Persian Empire, revolts broke

        out throughout the subject provinces.  To a prophetic mind such as that of

        Haggai, this must have suggested the prelude to the end event of history.  

        With Zerubbabel, a scion of the house of David as governor of Judah, the

        time appeared to be ripe for the rehabilitation of the house of the Lord.

                   Haggai's 1st prophecy in August-September of 520 B.C., appeals to

        Zerubbabel & Joshua the high priest to rally the people to the shattered 

        temple’s rebuilding.  The drought and bad harvests from which they have

        suffered are God’s punishment for their impious neglect. Less than 3 weeks

        after that, work on the temple begins. A month later Haggai makes a 2nd

        appeal.  Apparently the builders had lost heart.  Haggai promises the mes-

        sianic kingdom’s advent and the Gentiles’ downfall.  Their treasures will 

        flow to Jerusalem.

                   The 3^rd oracle’s meaning delivered 2 months later is rather obscure.

        It suggests that the prophet secures a decision from the priests to the effect

        that ritual uncleanness is more contagious than ritual holiness.  He may 

        mean that the previous unwillingness to rebuild had tainted their service of

        Yahweh, but now that they had started, their prosperity was assured. On

        the other hand, “this people” may refer to the Samaritans, & that Haggai is 

        recommending that their offer of help should be rejected on political rather

        than religious grounds.  In the last oracle, Haggai proclaims the end of 

        Gentile domination in the Day of the Lord.

                   The value of the book is historical rather than religious.  The prophe-

        cies represent a sad decline from the ethical vigor & conviction of the pre-

        exilic prophets.  Haggai’s chief concern is the cult's re-establishment, the 

        shell rather than the kernel.  Haggai takes the superficial view that material

        prosperity is assured provided the mechanics of worship are guaranteed. 

                   Yet on a long-term view it must be said that, without the temple and

        the Judaism which centered on it, the great prophets’ legacy would have 

        been quickly dissipated and Christianity would have had no foundations on

        which to build. The hope and encouragement Haggai’s message brought

        to Judah's dejected community at that time was a significant milestone 

        in the preparation of the good news.  From a historical point of view, the 

        book's value is that it forms a corrective to the Chronicler's inaccuracies &  

        sheds welcome light on the obscure period between Jerusalem's fall & 

        Nehemiah's achievements. 

HAGGEDOLIM  (הגדולים, the great ones)  The father of Zabdiel, a priest 

        (Nehemiah 11).

HAGGI  (הגי, born on a feast day)  The second son of Gad; ancestral head of  

        the “family of the Haggites.”

HAGGIAH  (הגיה, festal)  A Levite; descendant of Merari.

HAGGITH  (הגית, born on a feast day)  A wife of David; mother of Adonijah,  

        who later claimed the throne.

HAGIOGRAPHA (כתובים (keth oo beem), writings)  The term used for the 

        third division of the Hebrew Bible.  It is a miscellaneous collection of 11 

        varied books which achieved canonization separately.  The comparative 

        order of these books in the Hebrew and English Bible is listed below:

                                                                  

                          Hebrew Bible                                    English Bible  

        Psalms, Job, Proverbs (after                     Ruth (after Judges)

              Malachi) Ruth,                                    Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah 

                                                                                           (after Kings)
   Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes,               Esther   
   Lamentations                                           Job, Psalms, Proverbs

        Esther                                                       Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon
   Daniel                                                      Lamentations (after Jeremiah)

        Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles                    Daniel (after Ezekiel)    

HAGRI  (הגרי, fugitive)  Father of Mibhar, one of the Mighty Men in David’s

        army (I Chronicles 11)

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HAGRITE  (הגרי, fugitive)  A pastoral Bedouin tribe living in the region east of

        Gilead. They are named with the enemies of Israel who dwelt in the Trans-

        jordan.  In Saul's time the tribe of Reuben, perhaps with the assistance of

        the other Trans-jordan tribes, extended its territory to the edge of the desert

        by conquering the Hagrites. David gave Hagrites oversight of the flocks.

HAIL, HAILSTONES  (ברד (baw rod); אלגביש (el gaw beesh); calaza

        (kah lah za)) Hail occurs as the result of violent turbulence in fully deve-

        loped cumulo-nimbus clouds, and frequently accompanies severe thunder-

        storms.  Raindrops within the cloud are carried to great heights where the

        temperature is below -18 C (0 F); the ice pellets grow in size as they are

        carried up & down, until they are too heavy for the wind to keep aloft. Hail-

        storms are recorded in the Bible as ruining crops and striking down men &

        animals in the open. The hailstones which killed the Amorites at Gibeon 

        must have come from an very heavy cumulonimbus.

HAIR  (שער (sah ‘ar))  The hair’s capacity for constant growth has always    

        made it seem an important seat of life.  In the case of the Nazarite vow, 

        as in the case of Samson’s hair, the hair appears to have been left long

        in fulfillment of a vow.  The offering of the hair to the dead was part of

        ancient religious practices, but forbidden to the Hebrews; the complete 

        shaving of the head was forbidden for any purpose. In the Old Testament,

        long hair on men was greatly admired, but in the New Testament it is 

        frowned upon as contrary to nature. 

HAIRCLOTH  (בעל שער ( ba’al  sa har))  A termed used in II Kings 1; the 

        King James Version translates: “He was a hairy man.”  The Revised Stan-

        dard Version translation is obviously right in view of the phraseology in 

        Matthew 3 and Mark 1.

HAKKATAN (הקטן, small one)  A member of the family of Azgad; the father

        of a certain Johanan, who returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile

        with Ezra.

HAKKOZ  (הקוץ, the thorn) An ancestor & the source of the name of a family

        of priests in David’s time.   Members of this family were among those 

        unable to document their claim to priestly rank.  It is perhaps this family 

        that is represented by the Uriah who helped repair the wall of Jerusalem.

HAKUPHA  (הקופא, bent)  Head of a family of postexilic temple servants of 

        lower rank.

HALACHAH  (הלכה, walk)  The authoritative Jewish way of life as expressed

        in moral law and ritual precept.  It embraces the whole body of Jewish    

        teaching, legislation, and practices from the interpretation of the laws of

        the Bible through Jewish teachers from Ezra onward.  Although legalistic

        in content, the Halachah is designed to bring all human occupations into

        relation with the service of God. 

HALAH  (הלה)  A city or district in the Assyrian Empire, to which Shalma-

        neser exiled some of the Israelites in the ninth year of King Hosea.  The

        Revised Standard Version changed the traditional translation from “the 

        exile of this host” to “the exiles in Halah.”

HALAK, MOUNT (ההר הלק (ha har  hal ak), bald mountain)  A mountain

        mentioned as the southern limit of the conquest of Joshua.  The name &

        site are preserved in the Jebel Halaq on the Wadi Marra's northwestern 

        side, north of Abdeh.

HALF-SHEKEL TAX  (didracmon (di drak mon)  The temple tax required 

        annually of every Jew; it was worth about 2 Attic drachmas, (about 36 

        cents).

HALF-TRIBE (חצי שבט (khay tsee  shay bet))  A term used chiefly in Joshua

        and I Chronicles, & sparingly in Numbers & Deuteronomy, always with

        reference to Manasseh.  Half of the tribe, like Reuben & Gad, requested

        permission to settle east of the Jordan River.  Permission was granted on

        condition that they lead the military invasion of Canaan and help in the

        establishment of settlements west of the Jordan.  The half-tribe east of the

        Jordan was given a part of Gilead and all of Bashan. The other half-tribe

        settled in central Palestine, just north of Ephraim, southwest of Issachar,

        southeast of Asher.

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HALHUL (הלול, trembling, terror) A city of Judah in the hill-country Beth-zur

        district; 6.4 km north of Hebron.

     

HALI  (הלי, ornament, necklace)  A border town in the territory of Asher; it 

        must be near Helkath, but its exact location is unknown.

HALL  (1. לשכה (lish kaw), chamber; 2. אולם העמודים (oo lawm  ha’ 

        mood eem), porch of the pillars; 3.  ולם הכסא (oo lawm  ha kis say), 

        porch of the throne or judgment; 4. המלך בית (beth  ha ma leck ), 

        house of the king; 5. בית משתיא (beth  mish tah ya), banquet house; 

        6. aulh (ow leh); 7.  raitwrion (rahee it or ee on))

                   1.  A hall or room connected with the sanctuary, in which the sacri-

        ficial meal was eaten, and to which Saul and his servant were invited by 

        Samuel (I Samuel 9). This word is also used of the chambers of various 

        officials in the Jerusalem temple.

                   2.  The Hall or Porch of Pillars was a part of King Solomon’s palace,

        most likely a pillared porch at the entrance of the House of the Forest of 

        Lebanon.  Others see it as a separate building.

                   3.  The Hall or Porch of the Throne (Judgment) was another of King

        Solomon’s buildings.  Here the kings gave their legal judgments.  Some

        scholars have made it a chamber at one end of the House of the Forest of

        Lebanon, with that building and pillared porch providing an impressive 

        entranceway to it.  Others have made it an audience chamber at the en-

        trance to the royal residence itself.

                   4.  The king’s hall or house was the Persian King Ahasuerus' audi-

        ence chamber.  It was a great room a little over 58 meters on each side, 

        with 6 rows of pillars, 6 pillars in each row supporting the roof. The pil-

        lars were 2.1 meters around and almost 20 meters high.

                   5. King Belshazzar’s banqueting hall or house was the scene of a

        feast & the handwriting on the wall; it was a great audience chamber, a

        rectangular room about 15 meters by 48 meters & probably had a vaul-

        ted roof. The floors were paved with brick, & the plastered walls were

        decorated with colorful scenes in tile.

                   6.  King James Version translates aule as hall; the Revised Stan-

        dard Version translates it as “courtyard.”  

                   7.  The King James Version translates praitorion as hall in refer-

        ence to the governor's. official residence. The Revised Standard Version

        uses “praetorium” to translate this word.               

HALLEL  (הלל, Praise thou!)  A song of praise to the Lord.  To praise the Lord

        was one of the Levites’ duties.  The “Egyptian” Hallel (Psalm 113-118), 

        according to a tradition of Jesus’ century, was composed by Moses. It cele-

        brates God’s great deeds from the Exodus till the messianic time and was 

        recited in the homes at the Passover meal.  The “Great” Hallel (Psalms 

        120-136) praises God for having given rain and food to all flesh.

HALLELUJAH (הללו־יה (Praise (ye) the Lord!)  The form of doxology used in

        the fifth book of Psalms and in the work of the Chronicler.

                   The root-word hallel is used in both a secular and a religious sense.

        The secular use is the reason for the Jews interpreting the cultic excla-

        mation “Hallelujah” as an imperative:  “Praise Yah!”  But there is a Jewish

        tradition that originally “Hallelujah” is a very ancient enthusiastic cultic 

        shout not containing the divine name. It may be that the verb hallel had be-

        fore the Exile a profane & “heathenish” sense. In any case, there is no rea-

        son to see in “Hallelujah” the root of the Israelite hymns.  The custom of 

        starting songs of praise with an imperative is older than Israelite literature

        or the “hallelujah” in the Psalms.

                   The psalms containing “hallelujah” praise the Lord for his power & 

        his wisdom in Psalms 104-106, 115-117, 135, 146-150.  The last group of 

        Psalms listed combines all these motives in a general praise of all that God

        did, does, & will do.  “Hallelujah” appears in III Maccabees 7; the Egyptian

        Jews, saved from the king’s elephants, sang it going home in Alexandria.

                   The use of “Hallelujah” in the Christian churches varies. In the Eas-

        tern churches it has a long & living tradition with a great musical richness.

        During the Middle Ages the custom arose of combining the long melody

        of the final syllable “jah” with some words in Latin.  Luther accepted (1523)

        the “hallelujah” after the lessons as “eternal voice of the church,” but 

        sought to banish it without success in 1526.

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HALLOHESH  (הלוהש (charmer))  The father of Shallum, who, with his

        daughters, helped repair the walls of Jerusalem under Nehemiah.

HAM (הם, violence)  1.  The second of Noah’s three sons.  After the Flood he

        shared in the divine blessing and covenant.  However, the early Jahwist

        story tells that when Noah awoke from his drunken sleep and “knew 

        what his youngest son had done to him,” he cursed Canaan and con-

        demned him to the service of Shem and Japheth.  Because of the two 

        different sources of this story, it is best to separate this story from the 

        flood tradition and to infer that the original order of Noah’s sons was:  

        Shem, Japheth, and Canaan.  To harmonize the two accounts, an editor

        identified Ham as the father of Canaan.  Ham’s name is used in Psalms

        78, 105, and 106 symbolically for Egypt since Egypt was one of his sons.

HAM  (הם)  A city of the Zuzim in the region east of the Jordan.  The name is

        preserved in the modern village of Ham about 6.4 km south of Irbid.  The

        nearby tell or mound shows evidence of a settlement in the Bronze and 

        Iron ages (1300-900 B.C.) and the remains of a triple wall built of very 

        large stones. 

HAMAN  (המן, magnificent)  The Persian king Ahasuerus' prime minister &

        an enemy of the Jews in the book of Esther.  Because Mordecai, a Jew of

        the line of Kish & the uncle of Esther refused to bow before him, Haman

        contrived a plot to destroy all the Jews.  He had a gallows specially pre-

        pared for Mordecai.  But through Esther’s intervention, who was also the

        wife of Ahasuerus, Haman’s plot was revealed, & he met the fate he had

        planned for Mordecai.  Haman’s ten sons were killed too.  Some scholars

        view the story of Esther as reflecting a struggle between the gods of 

        Babylon & Elam.  Others regard it as romantic fiction created in connec-

        tion with the Feast of Purim.  Still others believe it records a genuine 

        event of the 400s B.C. 

HAMATH (המת, fortress) 1.  An important town between Damascus and 

        Aleppo on the Orontes in Syria.  Hamath was during long periods the 

        center of an independent kingdom, the southern frontier of which bor-

        dered on the northern frontier of the Israelite kingdom.  The earliest per-

        iod of settlement known goes back to Neolithic times (6000-4000 B.C.).

        The eighth level from the top found in excavation seems to correspond 

        to the Old Babylonian period.  From the Hyksos period there are no 

        findings.

                   Hamath is one of the important centers for the finding of Hittite 

        hieroglyphic inscriptions.  In the time of David, Hamath was the capital  

        of an important kingdom, with which David collaborated.  The latter 

        conquered King Hadadezer of Zobah, perhaps through the help of Toi of

        Hamath. After the North-South split, Jeroboam II seems to have re-esta-

        blished the frontiers of the northern Israelite kingdom, so that the south 

        frontier of Hamath again became the northern frontier of the Israelite 

        kingdom.  The power of the kingdom of Hamath is also recognizable in 

        Assyrian royal inscriptions.  In the Greek Age Hamath was still of 

        importance.                        
              2.  A town which was also called Hamath-Zobah.  This town is per-

        haps also mentioned in Ezekiel 47, & it is probably the same as Zobah.

HAMATH, ENTRANCE OF (לבא המת (lay bo  ha math)  The northern

        border of the Promised Land’s ideal limits and of Israel’s possession in

        the New Age.  Solomon’s kingdom extended from the Brook of Egypt 

        in the south to the entrance of Hamath.  It was somewhere in the On 

        Valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon Mountains.  Some place

        it between Mount Hermon and Mount Lebanon.  Since it is associated 

        with certain cities, it should probably be placed in the territory of Riblah.

        It is not improbable, as some have suggested, that “entrance to Hamath” 

        should be rendered as “Labo-Hamath”, a town name below Riblah. 

HAMATH-ZOBAH  (המת צובה, fortress station)  A designation of the town

        of Zobah in II Chronicle 8.

HAMMATH  (המת, hot spring)  1.  The “father” of Rechab, or the home of 

        the Kenites of the family of Rechab.

                   2.  A fortified town in Naphtali.  It is located at Hammam Tabari-

        yeh, just south of Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.

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HAMMEDATHA  (המדתא)  The father of Haman, archenemy of the Jews in 

        the book of Esther.

HAMMELECH  (המלך)  Instead of “the son of Hammelech,” as in the King 

        James Version, the Revised Standard Version translate it as “the king’s 

        son.”  This phrase may refer to any member of the royal household.

HAMMER.  (מקבה (mak keh baw); פטיש (pat tesh); sfura (seh fur ah)) 

        The hammer stone, a smooth or shaped stone held in the hand, was used 

        from earliest times down through the biblical period.  Beginning in the 

        Bronze Age (3000-1200 B.C.), the stone was sometimes perforated for 

        better grip or to receive a handle.  The term makkebah is used of the tool 

        of the stonemason.  The pattesh of Jeremiah 23 is also a stonemason’s

        tool. The Greek equivalent of this word is sphura, which means any ham-

        mer ormallet.  In Jeremiah 51, the context favors the translation “battle  

        ax” or “war club” for the Hebrew word mappets.

HAMMOLECHETH  (המלכת, she who reigns)  The sister of Gilead, the 

        source of a tribal name, and the ancestor of several tribal families of 

        Manasseh.

HAMMON  (המון, hot springs (?))  1.  A border town in Asher. It is perhaps

        to be identified with Umm el- ‘Awamid, about 8 km northeast of Ras en-

        Naqurab.      2.  A Levitical town in Naphtali.

HAMMUEL  (המואל, warmth of God)  A family or clan of the Simeon tribe  

        (I Chronicle 4).

HAMMURABI.  6^th king of Babylon’s 1^st Dynasty (1792-1750 B.C.); Sin-

        muballit’s son; Samsu-iluna’s father. 

                   The history of the King Hammurabi’s reign is known only in its 

        outlines. Apart from royal inscriptions, there are a large number of politi-

        cal and administrative letters and the official names given to the 42 years

        that Hammurabi ruled over Babylon. These names refer to all kinds of 

        royal activities, such as special building projects, votive offerings, temple

        statues, pious works, and wars.  The historical section of the preamble to 

        the Code of Hammurabi presents more evidence as to his kingdom’s maxi-

        mum extent than any other inscription, though its tenor is clearly hymnic

        and not historical.  It mentions all the major cities ruled by Hammurabi. 

                   There exist two more stone inscriptions referring to Hammurabi 

        that were poetic in nature.  The first is on a very broken basalt stela in 

        Sumerian and Akkadian, an inscription of his conquests.  The second is 

        an inscription on a broken statue, which addresses the king in Sumerian 

        and Akkadian, in hymnic terms.  The correspondence of Hammurabi con-

        sists mainly of about 140 letters that he sent to high administrative offi-

        cials touching mostly on legal and administrative matters.

                   In the history of Mesopotamia, Hammurabi & his period represent

        a crucial phase in the development of Babylonian civilization as well as 

        in the history of the city of Babylon.  Under the five kings of Babylon 

        before him, the city led an inconspicuous existence.  It can safely be as-

        sumed that the political status of Babylon repeatedly shifted from indepen-

        dence to more or less effective control by Isin or Larsa.  It seems that 

        Babylon’s rise to power started with the father of Hammurabi, who had  

        victories over Ur and Isin. 

                   From Hammurabi’s 7^th to his 11^th year he conquered Uruk, Isin,

        Malgum, and Rapiqu.  The following years up to the 29^th have names 

        that do not refer to war.  From his 30^th year to the end of his reign he 

        engaged in nearly uninterrupted warfare.  Most of the names of the war 

        years refer to coalitions against which he fought.  The “victories” of the

        early war years seemed to be of a somewhat defensive nature against the

        pressures caused by invading mountaineers. 

                   The second period of wars seems to have reduced rather than 

        extended his realm, to which he now likes to refer to as “Sumer & Ak-

        kad.”  The last years of Hammurabi are named after clearly defensive 

        measures to which he resorted in the north of the country.  Walls were 

        built along the Tigris and Euphrates, and Sippar was fortified by a wall. 

        It remains uncertain how much of Babylonia was held by the five kings 

        of the dynasty following Hammurabi in the next 150 years, each of them

        ascending the throne of his father. One thing, however, remains as the 

        enduring success of the rule of Hammurabi: all later kings of Babylonia  

        resided in Babylon, the other cities becoming provincial from then on.

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                  During the peaceful period between the 12^th & the 30^th year, Baby-

        lonia seems to have become not only prosperous and politically important

        but also a center of learning.  The centuries which followed the reign of

        Hammurabi became something like the golden age to which the numerous

        Old Babylonia texts bear witness.  Intimately connected with the name of

        Hammurabi is, of course the law code which bears his name.

                   The name Hammurabi belongs to those Semitic but not Akkadian

        personal names which begins to appear around 2000 B.C.  The language

        of the people who bear these names is referred to as “Eastern Canaanite,”

        “West Semitic,” or “Amorite.”  Apart from some rulers of Larsa, Hammu-

        rabi is the first king to have such a name, as his father & 2 kings before 

        him had truly Akkadian personal names.  The meaning of “Hammurabi” 

        is still debated.  The first element, “Hammu” no doubt refers to a god, &

        the second part refers to healing, but a reliable translation cannot be given.

HAMONAH  (המונה, multitude)  A city where Gog hordes are to be destroyed

        after the unsuccessful attack on Israel by this force of evil.

HAMON-GOG  (המון גוג, multitude of Gog)  A valley in Transjordan where

        the multitude of dead from the armies of Gog are to be buried (Ezekiel 39).

HAMOR  (המון, he-ass)  The father of Shechem, killed with him in revenge

        by Simeon and Levi. 

HAMRAN (המרן, from the root meaning, “to be red, agitated”) The 1st son

        of clan chief Dishon (I Chronicles 1).

HAMSTRING  (עקר (aw kar))  A verb meaning “to cut the muscle tendon 

        of the thigh.” To hamstring an animal completely disables or lames it.

HAMUL  (המול, spared)  The younger son of Perez, & the grandson of Judah,

        ancestral head of the Hamulites.

HAMUTAL  (המוטל, father-in-law of dew)  Wife of Josiah; mother of Jehoa-

        haz and Zedekiah.

HANAMEL  (הנמאל, probably “God is gracious”)  Son of Shallum, Jeremi-

        ah’s uncle (Jeremiah 32), from whom the prophet purchased a field at 

        Anathoth during the siege of Jerusalem.

HANAN  (הנן, shortened form of “God has been gracious”)   1.  A Benjamin

        descendant.     2.  A Benjaminite who was an ancestor of Saul.      3.  One

        of David’s Mighty Men.      4.  The head of a prophetic guild that occu-    

        pied a chamber in the temple.      5.  The head of a family of Nethinim that

        returned to Palestine after the Exile. 

                   6.  An assistant to the temple treasurers appointed by Nehemiah. 

        7.  A Levite who helped to interpret the law at the assembly of Ezra and

        also sealed the covenant (Nehemiah 8, 10).      8.  Another man who 

        sealed Ezra’s covenant.      9.  Another man who sealed Ezra’s covenant. 

HANANEL, TOWER OF  (הננאל מגדל (mig dal  han nah nel)  A tower on

        the northern rampart of Jerusalem.  The person for whom it was named 

        is not known.  It was replaced and eventually the Antonia Tower stood 

        where it once was. 

HANANI  (הנני, shortened form of “the Lord is gracious”)    1.  The father 

        of the prophet Jehu.      2.  A postexilic family of Levitical singers of the

        Heman group.      3.  A priest who divorced his foreign wife in Ezra’s time. 

            4.  A brother or kinsman of Nehemiah whose tidings of conditions in 

        Judah prompted Nehemiah’s work and who later was one of those put in

        charge of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1, 7).      5.  A musician at the dedication

        of the walls of Jerusalem. 

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HANANIAH (הנניהו, the Lord is gracious)    1.  An officer in Uzziah's army.

              2.  The father of a “prince” or administrative officer in Jeremiah's time.

              3.  A prophet who predicted Nebuchadnezzar's early fall & the early

        return of those exiled from Judah in 597 B.C. (Jeremiah 28).      4.  Grand-

        father or family of a sentry who arrested Jeremiah.      5.  A postexilic 

        descendant of David; son of Zerubbabel

        .           6.  A postexilic person or family of the tribe of Benjamin.      7.  A 

        post-exilic family of singers of the Heman group.      8.  One of those who 

        divorced their foreign wives in Ezra's time.      9.  A perfumer or ointment

        maker, who helped restore Jerusalem's walls under Nehemiah.      10.  A 

        repairer of Jerusalem's walls under Nehemiah. The confusion in the lists 

        make it impossible to tell if he is the same man as the preceding entry.

                   11.  The “governor of the castle”; one of those whom Nehemiah put

        in charge of Jerusalem.      12.  A “chief of the people” who signed the 

        pledge of reform.      13.   A priest, one of the trumpeters at the dedication 

        of the wall of Jerusalem.      14.  Ancestor of a family of Levites returning

        with Ezra.      15.  One of the three youths who figure in the stories in the 

        book of Daniel and its apocryphal additions.

HAND (יד (yawd), power, side)  Besides the numerous passages in which the  

        Bible uses “hand” simply to designate a part of the body, there are many 

        others in which the word has a metaphorical sense.  Most numerous are 

        those in which it occurs as a symbol of “power.”  The word can also be 

        used, like the words for many other parts of the human body, for “person”

        or in place of a personal pronoun.  There are many references to the 

        “hand” or power of God. In Hebrew as in English, the phrase right or left 

        “hand” can sometimes indicate position.

HANDBREADTH  (טפח (tay fakh))  A measure based on the hand's width

        at the base of the fingers, slightly less than 8 cm or about 3 inches.  6

        handbreadths were equal to the common cubit. 

HANDKERCHIEF (soudarion, (soo dah ree on), from Latin root meaning

        “sweat“)  It may refer to something like our handkerchief, used to wipe 

        away sweat, or to a towel-like head dressing. In Acts 19 the “handkerchief”

        was used to bring power from Paul for the healing of the sick.

HANDPIKE  (מקל יד ( mak kal  yawd), staff of the hand, javelin)  A long 

        wooden staff with a pointed metal head; used as a weapon by foot soldiers.

        As used in Ezekiel 39, it may have been a quarterstaff, a thrusting spear or

        pike, a javelin, or a battle-ax.

HANDS, LAYING ON OF.  A ceremony occurring in both the Old Testament

        (OT) and the New Testament   (NT) in various contexts and meanings. 
              In the burnt offerings & sin offerings of the OT sacrificial cult, the

        officers were directed to lay their hands on the victims before they were 

        slain. In the case of sin offerings, the ceremony may have meant nothing

        more than a setting apart of the victim in consecration to its sacred pur-

        pose. It was only a transference of guilt from offerer to victim in the case

        of the scapegoat. 

                   Laying on of hands was also used to impart blessing. Jacob blessed

        the children of Joseph, & Jesus blessed the little children.  Here the under-

        lying idea seems to be a transference of spiritual wholeness and physical 

        vitality.  Another type of blessing was the conveyance of the Holy Spirit 

        by the laying on of hands.
              A special type of blessing through laying on hands occurs in rites 

        of ordination.  Moses ordained Joshua as his successor, a ceremony adop-

        ted in later times for ordination to the rabbinate, which may well have been

        the source of Christian ordination. Moses conveyed a commission, not the

        “spirit of wisdom,” for Joshua already possessed this.  The ordination was

        an outward sign of recognition of Joshua’s spiritual qualifications.
              In the NT ordination has the same sense.  The 7 were ordained by 

        the 12 by prayer & the laying on of hands. Paul & Barnabas were commis-

        sioned and dismissed for their missionary journey by the prophets and 

        teachers at Antioch.  In I Timothy 5, the ceremony probably refers, not to

        ordination, but to the reconciliation of penitents.  In later church usage, 

        one finds a variety of associations of the ceremony:  confirmation, ordina-

        tion, healing, reconciling penitents, and the imparting of blessings upon 

        both persons and objects. 

HANES  (הנס)  The late name of the capital of the 20^th Upper Egyptian district.

        The native Egyptian name reflected in the Hebrew word was Hwt-nn-nsw,

        the house of the royal child.”  The Greeks renamed the city Heracleopolis

        Magna. 

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HANGING (תלה (taw law); מחנק (maw khaw nak), strangle; apagcw (ap

        ag ko), strangle)  After having been put to death, public enemies & crimi-

        nals might be hanged as a public warning; the dead man‘s hands were 

        tied together & slung over the gallows’ arm.  Biblical law does not recog-

        nize hanging as an execution form, but permits it afterward as long as the 

        corpse is taken down and buried the same day.  Joshua 8 and 10 records 

        that the Canaanite kings’ corpses were taken down & buried at sundown 

        on the day they were hanged.  Hanging oneself is referred to twice (II 

        Samuel 17 (nakhanaq) and Matthew 27 (apagcho)). 

HANGINGS  (קלעים (kel ah yeem))  Drapes.  The hangings which surroun-

        ded the court of the tabernacle were made of fine linen and were hung 

        from pillars about 2.3 meters high; they were carried by the Levitical 

        family of Gershon. Before the gate of the tabernacle court was hangings

        of richly colored material and fine  linen, on which was embroidery.  A 

        similarly constructed screen hung at the door of the tent of meeting. 

HANNAH  (הנה, grace)  Wife of Elkanah the Ephraimite; Samuel’s mother. 

        She made a vow that she would dedicate her child to God, which she did,

        saying that “as long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.” 

HANNATHON (הנתן, favored place)  A border town in Zebulun, perhaps 

        located about 9.5 km north of Nazareth; it could also be located at the 

        south end of the Plain of Acco. 

HANNIEL  (הניאל, grace of God)    1.  A Manassite leader, son of Ephod.  

        He was appointed, under the oversight of Eleazar and Joshua, to superin-

        tend the distribution of the Western Jordanian territory among the ten 

        tribes to be settled there.      2.  A leader or warrior of Asher; a son of Ulla. 

HANOCH  (הנוך, initiated)    1.  The ancestor and origin of the name of a 

        Midianite clan whose ancestry is traced to Abraham, through Keturah.  

              2.  The ancestor and origin of the name of a Reubenite clan.

HANUN  (הנון, God has been gracious)    1.  King of the Ammonites.  His 

        insult to the ambassadors of David caused Israel to besiege Rabbah.  

        The siege was apparently postponed until the end of the Aramean wars

        (II Samuel 10.  Then, despite stiff resistance by Hanun, the city was 

        captured and the inhabitants reduced to slavery. 
              2.  An inhabitant of Zanoah who helped repair 2 sections of the

        Jerusalem wall under Nehemiah. 

HAPHARAIM  (הפרים, 2 wells)  A town in Issachar-Haphariam that also

        appears in the Shishak list of conquered Palestinian towns. 

HAPPINESS.  Usually the human condition of well-being which comes with

        God’s blessing or as divine reward for righteousness.  The Hebrew term

        is translated either “happy” or “blessed.” 
              The word “blessed” is appropriate, since man’s happiness is 

        recognized as the fruit of God’s freely given blessing, or as a divinely 

        granted reward for human merit.  In Luke, the New Testament adds a 

        feature absent in the Old Testament.  The new note is the prospective  

        nature of happiness: “Your reward is great in heaven.” 

HAPPIZZEZ (,הפצץ the dispersion)  A descendant of Aaron & the origin

        of the name of a family of temple priests under King David. 

HARA (הרא, mountainous)  The place to which the king of Assyria exiled

        the Hebrew tribes Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh.  Some have 

        regarded Hara as the local designation of the mountainous region north

        of Gozan-Guzana.  Because I Chronicles 5 appears to be a faulty rendi-

        tion of II Kings 17 and 18, in which both the Hebrew and the primary 

        Greek Old Testament treat the word as a simple rather than a proper 

        noun, some have regarded Hara as a corruption of the “mountains of

        Media” that is found in II Kings. 

HARADAH (הרדה, terror)  A stopping place in the journey of the Israelites 

        from Sinai.  The location is unknown. 

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HARAN  (הרן, mountaineer)  1.  Son of Terah; brother of Abram and Nahor;

        father of Lot, Milcah, and Iscah.     2.   A Judahite; son of Caleb and his

        concubine Ephah.      3.  A Levite; son of Gershonite Shimei. 

HARAN (PLACE)  (הרן, parched, scorched)  A city of north Mesopotamia

        Turkey) where Abraham lived, where his father Terah, died, and from 

        whence Abraham migrated to Canaan. The kinsmen of the patriarchs 

        continued to dwell as Arameans in Haran; Rebekah daughter of Bethuel,

        was brought from there.  Jacob fled there & married Laban’s daughters,

        Leah and Rachel; all his children except Benjamin were born there. 
              The devotions of Haran to the moon cult of Babylonia indicates

        that the city was founded by the Third Dynasty of Ur, perhaps around  

        2000 B.C.  Current excavations in Haran have revealed a long and conti-

        nuous history from Assyro-Babylonian through Islamic times. 

HARARITE  (הררי, mountaineer)  A tribal name of an unidentified tribe, 

        used in connection with the fathers of three members of “the Thirty” 

        Mighty Men of David:  Agee, father of Shammah; Shammah, father of

        Jonathon; Sachar, father of Ahiam. 

HARBONA  (הרבונא)  One of the 7 eunuchs who served as chamberlains

        for Ahasuerus.  He suggested that Haman be hanged upon the gallows  

        he had prepared for Mordecai. 

HARBOR  (limhn (lim en))  The word is used in the account of Paul’s

        voyage to Rome with reference to Fair Havens near Lasea in Crete. 

HARDEN THE HEART. (קשה (kaw sheh), stiff-necked; אמץ (’aw mats),

        active, vigorous; כבד (kaw bade); pepwrwmenhn (peh po ro meh

        nen), callous; sklhrunw  (skleh roo no), stubborn) A phrase expres-

        sing a firm set of mind, stubbornness, indifference, callousness, insensi-

        bility, inability to understand.  The biblical writers speak of God’s har-

        dening men’s hearts.  At the same time they avow men harden their own

        hearts.  They found no apparent inconsistency in ascribing this activity

        both to God and to men. 

HARE  (ארנבת (‘ar na beth))  Any of several herbivorous rodents.  The 

        common hare of Palestine is somewhat smaller than the average hare,

        whereas the common hare of the northern regions is the same size and

        color of the English hare.  The Old Testament refers to the hare only to

        indicate that it is an unclean animal, but its assertion that hares chew 

        cud is erroneous. 

HAREPH  (הרף, autumn, scorn)  The founder of Beth-Gader. 

HARHAIAH (הרהיה, he was burning) Uzziel’s father, who helped repair  

        the walls of Jerusalem under Nehemiah. 

HARHAS  (הרהס, poor) Grandfather of Shallum, husband of Huldah. 

HAR-HERES  (הר הרס, mountain of the sun)  A mountain near Aijalon;

        probably identical with the border fortress of Beth-Shemesh. 

HARHUR  (הרהור, possibly raven)  The name of an ancestor & the origin

        of the name of a family of temple servants listed among return exiles. 

HARIM  (הרם, consecrated to God)    1.  A descendant of Aaron and the

        origin of the name for a priestly house in the reign of King David.     

        2.  The ancestor & origin of the name for a non-priestly family among

        the returned exiles.      3.  A priest who signed Ezra’s covenant.      

        4.  A chief of the people, and signatory to Ezra’s covenant. 

HARIPH  (הריף, autumn, scorn)  Head of a family that resided in Jerusalem

        after the Exile and one of those who sealed Ezra’s covenant. 

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HARMON  (ההרמונה (ha har mo nah), the palace)  The name Harmon ap-

        pears nowhere else in the Bible, & no place by this name is known.  Many

        of older versions have presupposed a common rather than a proper noun. 

HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS  ( See the entry in the New Testament 

        Apocrypha section of the Appendix). 

HARNEPHER  (הרנפר, from the Egyptian, meaning Horus is merciful)  

        A place or family in Asher. 

HAROD (הרד, trembling)   1.  A spring, the site of Gideon’s encampment

        while preparing for battle with the Midianites.  It is generally identified

        with a spring located on a northwestern spur of Mount Gilboa.
              2.  The home of two of David’s men, Shammah and Elika. 

HAROEH  (הראה, the seer)  Son of Shobal; probably the same as Reaiah 

        in I Chronicles 4. 

HAROSHETH-HAGOIIM (הגוים הרשת (har o sheth  ha goy eem), sculp-  

        ture [of] the foreigners)  A Canaanite town; home of Sisera, who was 

        defeated by Israel under Barak and Deborah.  Its location remains 

        unknown.  Scholars have tried to identify it with Tell ’Amir, Tell el-

        Harbaj, or someplace on the Plain of Sharon. 

HARPOON  (שכה (sook kaw), King James Version has “barbed iron”)  Men-

        tioned in Job 41 along with fishing spears as an inadequate weapon for 

        catching the sea monster Leviathan. 

HARROW  (שדד (saw dad), straight, even)  The harrow as a special tool is not

        known in ancient Palestine, but there are biblical references to some pro-

        cess other than plowing. 

HARSHA  (הרשא, enchanter, magician)  The ancestor and origin of the name

        for a family of temple servants listed among the returning exiles. (Ezra 2; 

        Nehemiah 7.) 

HART  (איל, (aw  yawl))  the adult male of the Red Deer.  The general color 

        of their coat varies slightly with the seasons, but it tends toward a reddish 

        brown.  Various Old Testament references indicate that the ayal was an 

        available & edible game animal.  It can only be described as a reasonable

        hypothesis that the deer referred to in the Bible is the Red Deer. 

HARUM  (הרום, high)  The ancestor & the origin of the name for a family

        of the tribe of Judah. 

HARUMAPH (הרומף, flat-nosed) Jedaiah’s father, who helped repair the

        walls of Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s time. 

HARUPHITE  (הריפי, autumn rain)  The gentilic designation of Shephatiah,

        one of the Benjaminite warriors who joined David at Ziklag. 

HARUZ  (הרוץ, diligent) Amon’s maternal grandfather. His name is proba-

        bly Arabic, and his place of origin is probably Jotbah. 

HARVEST.  The gathering of the crops.  The Gezer Calendar provides a clue

        to the harvest seasons in ancient Israel.  Olives were harvested at the 

        beginning of their year (mid-September to mid-November) by beating the

        trees with long sticks.  In March-April flax was harvested by cutting it off

        near the ground, then laying the stalks out to dry.  The harvesting of 

        barley took place in April or early May, while the wheat harvest occurred

        in May-June. During August-September the summer fruits—figs, grapes,

        and pomegranates—were harvested. 

HASADIAH  (הסדיה, whom the Lord loves)  One of Zerubbabel’s sons. 

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HASHABIAH  (השביה, whom the Lord esteems)    1.  A Levite listed as an-  

        cestor of a musician of the sanctuary.     2.  A Levite, ancestor of Shema-

        iah, a returned exile.      3.  A Levite, son of Jeduthun; listed among the 

        musicians set apart by David to prophesy.      4.  A Hebronite, men-

        tioned as a royal deputy under King David for the area west of the 

        Jordan.      5.  A chief officer of the Levites under King David.  

                   6.  A chief of the Levites under King Josiah.      7.  A Merarite

        Levite among those who joined Ezra’s company at the River Ahava &

        perhaps a Levite who was among those signing Ezra’s covenant.      

        8.  One of the laymen among those persuaded by Ezra to divorce their

        foreign wives.      9.  A builder of Nehemiah’s wall.      10.  A Levite, 

        descendant of Asaph.      11.  A priest of the house of Hilkiah in the 

        time of Joiakim the high priest. 

HASHABNAH  (השבנה, God has esteemed me (probably))  One of those  

        who sealed Ezra’s covenant. 

HASHABNEIAH (השבניה, God has esteemed me (probably))    1. The 

        father of Hattush, who helped repair Jerusalem's walls in Nehemiah's

        time.      2.  A Levite who participated in a liturgical blessing of Yahweh

        Yahweh in Ezra's time ; he might be the same person as Hashabiah (#7).  

HASHBADDANAH (השבדנה, God has esteemed me (probably))  A man,

        possibly a Levite and the same person as Hashabneiah (#2), who stood

        on Ezra’s left hand when the Law was read at the great assembly. 

HASHEM  (השם)  A Gizonite who was a member of the Thirty Mighty 

        Men of David. 

HASHMONAH  (השמנה, rich, opulent, noble)  A stopping place along the

        route of Israel’s journey from Sinai. 

HASHUBAH  (השבה, whom Yahweh has esteemed) A son of Zerubbabel. 

HASHUM  (השם, rich) An ancestor and the origin of the name for one of

        the families that returned from exile. 

HASIDIM  (הסידים, the pious ones)  The term hasid applies to one who    

        practices hesed. 
              The term hesed is frequently associated with “covenant,” as in

        the phrase “to keep covenant and hesed.”  In a sense, hesed denotes 

        the joint liability, the mutual obligation, of persons who are involved in 

        social, economic, or political relationships.  Hesed has been defined as

        the “virtue that knits together society.”  It was applied to the loyalty of

        wife to husband; the friendship of David and Jonathan; the ideals which

        the good wife & mother seeks to make a part of her family.  The Bible's

        older English translations have used “mercy,” “kindness,” or especially

        “loving kindness.”  The basic meaning of the word appears to be loyalty.

        Where hesed applies to God’s dealing with man, the Revised Standard 

        Version chooses “steadfast love.” 

                   A hasid is person characterized by hesed, a man of hesed.  As 

        applied to people, it denotes their ideal loyalty to God with the commu-

        nity of the faithful.  The English versions generally render hasidim as 

        “saints.”  In a few passages the Revised Standard Version (RSV) has 

        changed from “saints” to “faithful ones.”  In the passages where the 

        RSV has kept “saints,” the word has in each case a possessive suffix 

        referring to the Lord.  There was a point in time when merely belonging

        to the chosen people was title to the designation hasid, but with the 

        development of ethical monotheism the term came to have moral and

        spiritual implications. 

HASMONEANS (See the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences  

        Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.).

HASRAH  (הסרה, poverty)  Chronicle form of the name Harhas. 

HASSENUAH  (הסנאה, thorny)  A postexilic Benjaminite family name.

HASSHUB  (השוב, considerate)    1.  A member of the Merari clan of the 

        tribe of Levi, & the father of a certain Shemaiah who settled in Jerusalem

        after the Exile.      2.  Either one man who had two assignments in rebuil-

        ding the walls of Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s time or two builders with the

        same name.      3.  One of those who sealed the covenant in Ezra's time. 

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HASUPHA  (השופא, bare, naked)  Ancestor and origin of the name for a 

        family of temple servants among the returned exiles. 

HAT  (כרבלה (kar beh lah), mantle, cloak)  One of the articles of clothing with

        which the three Hebrews were cast into the furnace.  

HATCHET (כשיל (kash sheel), axe) One of the instruments used in breaking

        down the sanctuary’s carved wood. 

HATE, HATRED (שנא (sen ay)) Dislike, antipathy, aversion, between per-

        sons, in a variety of relationships. 

                 In the Old Testament the concepts derives its peculiar religious 

        meaning from the notion that God hates.  God hates evil, and so Israel 

        must hate evil.  God also hates idolatry & false worship.  It is important 

        to recognize that hate as a biblical concept is based essentially upon the 

        religious commitment to reject and turn away from those who deny God

        and his laws.  There is no sharp distinction between the power of evil &

        the actor; nor is there any explicit emphasis on overcoming hate with love.
              In the New Testament, Jesus’ teachings contain no holy hate 

        against people. Jesus admonishes his disciples to love even their ene-

        mies. But increasing hatred is a sign of the kingdom's approaching con-

        summation. The difficult passage enjoining hatred of family & self is

        intended to stress the unconditional character of discipleship.  “Hatred”

        is used nearly synonymously with “denying the self.”  

                   While life in the old age was characterized by hate, life in the new

        age is characterized by love. Renunciation or hatred of wickedness is moti-

        vated by God’s love for sinners; it moves the disciple to love those captive

        by wickedness. Especially in the Gospel and Letters of John the sharp anti-

        thesis between the life of love & of hate is drawn.  Hatred assumes almost

        cosmic dimensions in its demonic opposition to God’s love.  The church's

        mission is to reveal this love to the world, which continues in hate. 

HATHACH (התך)  A eunuch of Ahasuerus appointed to attend Queen Esther.

        It was through him that she learned from Mordecai about Haman’s plot 

        against the Jews. 

HATHATH  (התת, terror, dismay) A Calebite family. (I Chronicles 4.13) 

HATIPHA (הטיפא, seize) The ancestor and origin of the name of a family of

        temple servants (Ezra 2; Neh. 7).

HATITA  (הטיטא, digging)  A family of gatekeepers (Ezra 2; Nehemiah 7) 

HATTIL  (הטיל,waving)  A family of “sons of Solomon’s servants” (Ezra 2;

        Nehemiah 7). 

HATTUSH  (הטוש)  1.  A postexilic descendant of David who returned to 

        Judah with Ezra; he was called the grandson of Shecaniah in I Chronicles

        3, but the son of the same man in Ezra 8.     2.  A repairer of the wall of 

        Jerusalem in Nehemiah 3, perhaps the same as #1 above.      3.  A post-

        exilic priest who signed the pledge of reform. 

HAURAN  (הורן, cavern place)  A district east of the Jordan and the Sea of 

        Galilee, north of the Yarmuk River.  It marks the northeast limit of Eze-

        kiel’s ideal Israel.  It was occupied apparently by the kings of Damascus

        after the Israelite kingdom’s.  Tiglath-pileser III overran it in 732 B.C. &

        Ashurbanipal crushed a revolt there.  (See also the entry in the Old Testa-

        ment Apocrypha / Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.).
           After the death of Herod, this territory fell to his son Herod Philip;

        in 37 A.D. Caligula bestowed it upon his favorite Herod Agrippa.  Hauran

        was again under Nabatean control 85 to 106, when Trajan finally added 

        it to the Roman province of Syria. 

HAVEN  (חוף (khofe), shore, cove, harbor)  Used primarily in the nautical 

        sense, as a place which offers safe anchorage and station ships. 

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HAVILAH  (הוילה, perhaps “sandy”)  A land mentioned in the story of the

        Garden of Eden as producing excellent gold, bdellium gum, and the

        shoham (“onyx“) stone, and as being surrounded by the River Pishon. 

        The name also occurs as a son of Cush.  The Ishmaelites are also said 

        to have lived in the territory from Havilah to Shur.  The use of “Havi-

        lah” in the passage where Saul pursued the Amalekites is probably an

        error for Hachilah, which is a hill in the vicinity of Shur.  Opinions as

        to the location of Havilah have differed widely, but the most widely 

        accepted location is the west coast of Arabia.  The products of Havilah

        give the impression of an Arabian country, as those products are found

        in many parts of Arabia. 

HAVVOTH-JAIR  (הות יאיר, villages of Jair [he will enlighten])  A group of 

        30 (Judges 10) or 60 (Deut. 3) villages located in Bashan in Gilead. 

        There are at least 3 accounts of how these villages received their name. 

              In Numbers 32 and Deuteronomy 3, these cities were taken by “Jair

        the son of Manasseh”—i.e., the Jair clan of the Manasseh group. In Judges

        10, there is mention of a judge named Jair, who had 30 sons, who ruled 

        over 30 cities.  In I Chronicles, there is mention of a connection between

        the clans of Manasseh & those of Judah.  These 3 explanations represent

        various traditions that arose to explain the name. The 1st account assu-

        ming that the conquest was made by a clan appears most likely to be 

        historical. 

HAWK  (נץ (nets); קאת (kaw ath), spew out, pelican)  Any of several small 

        to medium-sized birds of prey, among them being the sparrow hawk, the

        marsh harrier, and the hen harrier.  This group of birds was unclean. 

HAY (See Grass) 

HAZAEL  (הזאל, whom God beholds)  King of Damascus from around 841-

        798 B.C.  Hazael was a servant of Ben-Hadad I of Damascus.  When 

        informed by the prophet Elisha that he was to be king of Damascus, 

        Hazael murdered his master and seized the throne of Damascus.  In 841 

        B.C., only Hazael resisted the Assyrian Shal-maneser III in Syria.  After

        2 unsuccessful assaults on Damascus Shallmaneser III left Hazael alone.

                   Hazael menaced the kingdoms of both Jehu of Israel & Jehoahaz of 

        Judah. He took all the Israelite lands east of the Jordan River, humbled 

        Israel & seriously reduced its military force.  When Hazael threatened to

        approach Jerusalem, King Joash of Judah bribed him with rich treasure 

        stripped from his palace and temple at Jerusalem.  A mighty warrior and 

        perhaps the greatest king of Damascus, Hazael was also a builder who 

        adorned his capital.  Hazael died and was succeeded by his son Ben-  

        hadad II. 

HAZAIAH  (הזיה, whom the Lord beholds)  An ancestor of a certain 

        Maaseiah, who was a Jewish lay leader living in postexilic Jerusalem. 

HAZAR-ENAN  (הצר עינן, village of fountains)  According to Numbers

        34, a city on the frontier between Palestine and Hamath at the foot of 

        Mount Hermon. 

 HAZAR-GADDAH  (הצר גדה, village of fortune)  A city in the southern

        part of Judah, mentioned between Moladah and Heshmon.  It may have

        been a shrine of Gad, the god of fortune.  The site is unknown. 

HAZAR-MAVETH  (הצר-מות, court of death)  A Semitic people descended

        from Shem through Joktan who settled in the Wadi Hadhramaut in 

        southern Arabia.  This valley parallels the coast for about 320 km.  

        The economy of Hadramaut was based on the control of the frankin-

        cense groves and the caravan route, and Cana, the major frankincense

        port in Arabia. The history of this state is little known.  It appears to 

        have enjoyed two periods of great power in the 400s B.C. and from 1 

        A.D. to 200. 

HAZAR-SHUAL  (הצר שועל, village of jackals)  A town of Simeon in the

        extreme south of Judah, always mentioned in close relationship with 

        Beer-sheba.  It was occupied by the Jews after the Exile.  The name 

        suggests that it was originally occupied a Canaanite clan with a jackal

        as its totem. 

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HAZAR-SUSAH  (הצר סוסה, village of horses)  A city of Simeon in the south-

        western part of Judah.  It was a sort of stables where Solomon kept the

        horses he imported from Egypt and sold to the Hittites and Syrians. 

HAZAZON-TAMAR  (הצצן תמר, pruning of the palm)  A city of the 

        Amorites which was conquered by Chedorlaomer and his allies.  It was

        apparently not far from Sodom; in I Chronicles 20 it is identified with

        En-Gedi on the west side of the Dead Sea.  It may be the same as the 

        Tamar fortified by Solomon. 

HAZER-HATTICON  (התיכון הצר, middle court)  A place mentioned in

        Ezekiel 47 as the northeast corner of his ideal boundary of Israel. It may

        have been copied wrong, and should perhaps be “Hazar-enon.” 

HAZERIM  (הצרים)  The King James Version interprets this word as a 

        place name.  The Revised Standard Version interprets it as a common  

        noun meaning “villages.” 

HAZEROTH  (הצרות, settlement)  A camping place of the Israelite after

        Kibroth-hattaavah.  Here Miriam and Aaron disputed with Moses over

        his marriage with a Cushite, and over his unique position as the sole 

        mediator between God and God’s people. 

HAZIEL  (הזיאל, vision of God)  A Gershonite Levite.  (I Chronicles 23).

HAZO  (הזו, vision)  The fifth son of Nahor and Milcah; probably to be 

        identified with the mountainous, uninviting region of Hazu in Northern

        Arabia. 

HAZOR  (הצור, enclosure)  1.  A tell or mound about 8 km southwest of 

        Lake Huleh, 16 km north of the Sea of Galilee.  The huge tell domi-

        nates the Plain of Huleh and the ancient Via Maris.  
              Hazor was a Canaanite royal city; its king, Jabin, headed the 

        northern Canaanite coalition against Joshua.  The alliance was defeated;

        Hazor was sacked.  About 100 years later Deborah and Barak led a 

        revolt against another Jabin who ruled northern Israel.  Israel won the

        Battle of Taanach and routed Jabin’s forces under Sisera.  To protect

        the Huleh Plain, Solomon rebuilt and fortified Hazor.  In 732 B.C., 

        Tiglath-pileser took it. 
           Archaeology has discovered cities from the Hyksos, Amarna, &

        post-Amarna periods, the last one possibly destroyed by Joshua.  The

        “Lower City” of Hazor wasn't rebuilt after its destruction.  A disco-

        very of great interest in this area was a series of 4 superimposed 

        Canaanite temples, one on top of the other.  On the tell, 21 habitation

        levels have been identified, dating to 2750-2500 B.C.  After Joshua’s

        conquest in the late 1200s B.C., 2 Hazors, presumably Israelite and 

        much poorer than the Canaanite one, preceded Solomon’s. 
              On the tenth level, a gate like those that Solomon built at 

        Megiddo and Gezer was discovered.  Over this city, Ahab (869-850)

        rebuilt the city, erecting a large public building & a heavily fortified

        citadel on the western tip of the mound.  The next city, from the time

        of Jeroboam II (786-746) contained the buildings of wealthy merchants.

        Above this were the ruins of the city destroyed by Tiglath-pileser in 732;

        there is a three-foot layer of ashes to mark this period and level.  The 

        Persians used the citadel in the 400s and 300s. 
             2.  A city of Judah in the Negeb, about 14 km southeast of el-’Auja. 
              3.  A city of Judah in the Negeb, according to the King James 

        Version.  The Revised Standard Version has the name as “Hazor-

        Hadattah.” 
              4.  A city north of Jerusalem reoccupied by the Benjaminites after

        the Exile.  (Nehemiah 11). 
              5.  A still unknown place in the Arabian Desert east of Palestine

        which Nebuchadrezzar despoiled in 598 B.C., either a single place or a 

        group of tribes. 

HAZOR-HADATTAH  (הצר הדתה, new town)  A village in the Negeb 

        district of Beer-sheba.  It is possibly southwest of Tuwani toward the 

        Dead Sea. 

HAZZELELPONI (הצללפוני, shade turned towards me) A sister of certain

        descendants of Judah (I Chronicles 4). 

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HE (ה (hay))  The Hebrew Alphabet's 5th letter as placed in the King James

        Version at the head of the 5th section of the acrostic psalm, Psalm 119. 

HEAD  (ראש (roshe), from the root “to shake”; kefalh (ke fah leh))  A

        term used both literally and metaphorically in the Bible.  In an extended

        sense it is an appropriate name for the topmost part of anything, or as a

        “source of authority.”  The word “head” in the Bible is never connected

        with the intelligence; the intellectual powers were believed to be situated

        in the heart.  The most distinctive theological use of the word “head” 

        occurs in Ephesians and Colossians, where it describes the relationship

        of Christ to the Church. 

HEADBAND  (שביס (shaw beece), netting)  Probably a head ornament of

        gold or silver. (Isaiah 3).

HEADDRESS  (פאר (peh air), turban)  A woman’s head-covering, ornamen-

        tal in character.  It was wound about the head without any undercover.  

        The Hebrew word is also used of the wedding garland of the bridegroom. 

HEALING, GIFTS OF.  Primitive Christianity possessed miraculous powers,

        including the power to heal.  From the beginning of his ministry Jesus 

        performed healing miracles.  His enemies attributed this power to Satan.

        In the power of the Spirit he began his ministry, proclaiming the kingdom,

        and affirming that healing was a sign, among others, that the rule of God

        had been inaugurated. 

                   The healing activity of Jesus and his disciples explains the place 

        of healing in the primitive church.  The gift is conferred by the Spirit.  

        The New Testament gifts of healing are an integral part of the mission &

        message of Jesus, and of the early church’s consciousness of their fulfill-

        ment; they must not be confused with psychiatry, or faith healing. 

HEALING, HEALTH  (שלם (sha lem), wholeness, peace)  Healing may 

        be described in terms of the curing or restoring to health of a sick person

        by the closure of wounds or effective curing of the body or mind.  A 

        person may be described as healthy when they exhibit a body & mind 

        in which is functioning harmoniously. 
              Health: Longevity & Environment in the Bible—In antiquity,

        as in all ages, health was a highly prized possession among the Near 

        Eastern peoples.  The Hebrews tended to think of health as physical 

        strength and well-being.  Mental or emotional disturbances were gene-

        rally related to some specific organ.  The Hebrews’ pastoral and  agricul-

        tural  pursuits  made  a  robust physique desirable.  The weakling and 

        the invalid were treated with contempt by the ancient Hebrews. The 

        structure of society made life very difficult indeed for anyone who was

        not in full possession of his faculties. 
              Whenever blessings were invoked, length of days was one of the

        benefits most frequently sought.  However, if the individual lived beyond

        threescore and ten years, hardship and sorrow were the logical and expec-

        ted outcome.  In actual fact, life expectancy was nearer 60 than 70.  The

        advanced ages of the patriarchs living before the Flood are modest com-

        pared with early Babylonian mythology.  The advanced ages ascribed to

        Seth, Enoch, and others are symbolic or have to do with the clan or tribe

        that the name came to represent. 
              Palestine does not appear to have had widespread infection.  The

        valleys & wadis didn't normally afford a breeding ground for mosqui-

        toes, while the incidence of imported diseases was probably less than 

        in countries with flourishing trade.  Even with more city-dwellers in the

        700s B.C., the overall situation did not change.  It was only late in the 

        period of Old Testament (OT) history that the cities became overcrowded.
              Some diseases which were scourges in the ancient world have 

        now largely disappeared while others which were unknown in ancient 

        times are very common.  There can be no question that infant mortality

        was extremely heavy in antiquity; perhaps only 3 of every 10 children 

        would expect to survive to adulthood.  There was widespread lack of 

        hygiene and neglect of elementary precautions for safeguarding public  

        health.
              In earlier phases of Hebrew thought, disease was divine visitation

        consequent upon sin; this theory persisted throughout the entire biblical

        period.  There appears to be little awareness of the connection of environ-

        ment to disease.  Since God was the physician of God’s people, healing

        constituted a manifest token of God’s forgiveness.  Health was maintained

        by a punctilious observance of the divine commands. 
              Disease Prevention and the Mosaic Code—An important legis-

        lative step to counteract the effects of ignorance was achieved with the

        Mosaic code's sanitary section, which were more advanced than other

        Near Eastern peoples.  Moses may well be spoken of as preventive medi-

        cine‘s father. In the  OT's first 5 books, social hygiene became a science. 

                   The code’s requirements were for a time when the Hebrews 

        would be a sedentary people occupying the promised land.  The Mosaic

        law was a complete repudiation of magic.  By establishing Yahweh’s 

        moral supremacy, they eliminated the need for magic, and placed the 

        entire disease situation on a spiritual footing, where the personal relation-

        ship of the individual and God was the determining factor.  This did not

        exempt the righteous from sickness any more than it condemned the 

        wicked to lifelong affliction. 

H-19

              The moral concepts of holiness contained in the law indicated a

        new approach to sickness.  If one pursued a life of spiritual fellowship 

        with God, one was entertaining a valuable safeguard against sickness. 

        If one attempted to cure disease when it arose, that was a trespass upon

        God’s prerogatives. Instruction in the medical code, such as those in 

        Leviticus was a priestly function.  This was in keeping with the practice

        of giving to the priesthood the responsibility of instructing the people 

        in all knowledge. 
              The custom of observing certain days during each month on 

        which most activities were suspended had its roots in the religion of 

        the Old Akkadian period.  The ancient Babylonians interpreted the 

        lunar phases in the light of divine activity.  A type of horoscope was 

        drawn up which stated whether or not the particular day was propitious,

        and what kind of activity might be pursued.  In the older Babylonian 

        calendars there were nine principal days.  During Ashurbanipal's reign,

        the moon phases were represented by the 7^th, 14^th, 21^st, and 28^th days;

        activity was restricted on these days. The term shapattu was reserved 

        for the day of the full moon. 

                   While the Hebrew Sabbath was perhaps associated with the new

        moon at one time, it was essentially a religious observance. It was 

        intended to provide an opportunity for mental and spiritual recreation, 

        and to keep vigor and efficiency at a consistent level.  Somehow, one 

        rest day in 7 best suits the needs of the human body; different ratios 

        have been tried, but have failed to achieve the same success. The pro-

        per Sabbath observance will determine how much physical well-being

        an individual can expect.  Thus, the idea becomes a principle of great 

        importance for the physical and spiritual health of both the individual  

        and the community. 
              If the preventive concepts enshrined in Sabbath observance were

        intended to promote individual and social well-being, the legislation 

        concerning the varieties of food was evidently enacted to serve as a 

        guide for maintaining health and vigor.  While other nations adjusted 

        their diets to the dictates of tradition, regarding some foods as “clean”

        and others as “unclean,” they were not as careful in identifying foods    

        as the Hebrews.
              Some scholars have suggested that this classification developed

        from the system of primitive taboos.  In ancient Egypt those animals &

        birds which were considered sacred were forbidden for food.  Only those

        animals which chewed the cud & parted the hoof were suitable for food,

        since they were exclusively vegetarian.  Vegetarianism was only restric-

        ted in that the fruit of newly planted trees was forbidden.  Under no cir-

        cumstances was the flesh of an animal that had died from natural causes

        to be eaten.  Of the aquatic creatures, those which had fins and scales 

        were clean, even those which preyed on other fish. 
           These rules were designed to protect the individual and communal

        health. There is far less chance of contracting food poisoning from a 

        vegetarian animal in the tropics, than there is when carnivores are eaten.

        The pig's flesh, which might cause trichinosis (tapeworm infestation), is

        especially dangerous in this way.  The pig is also the intermediate host 

        for a small tapeworm, which causes liver, lung, & other tumors. It must

        also be remembered, that animals who chew cud aren't wholly free from

        parasitic organisms. 

                   It is probable that the rules against eating animal flesh without 

        discrimination were intended to safeguard against certain fly bites.  The

        Hebrews, like other ancient Near Eastern cultures, restricted their diet to

        only to those aquatic creatures which had fins and scales.  The exclusion

        of all crustaceans removed one possible source of epidemic disease.  

        However, even certain varieties of clean fish can convey tularemia. 

                   The risk of infection by the parasitic organisms dealt with above 

        was greater then than it is now, because the preservation of meat under 

        subtropical climatic conditions was almost impossible.  Even with com-

        paratively fresh meat, Hebrew cooking would seldom ensure that any 

        parasitic organism would always be destroyed.  Under such conditions 

        the preventive approach is the best method of ensuring comparative free-

        dom from infestation.

                   The concern for public health also expressed itself in the effort to

        protect food & water from pollution.  Insistence on having a clean supply

        of water was most effective in forestalling amoebiasis, enteric fevers, 

        cholera, and spirochetal jaundice.  These preventive measures were of 

        particular importance for the welfare of a nation living under primitive

        conditions in the subtropics.
                [Health and Sexuality]---In the ancient world, circumcision was a

        quasi-religious rite, the mark of initiation into a tribe, or the sign  required 

        for manhood.  Among the Jews it claimed an overriding religious signifi-

        cance through its association with the Covenant.  It was the only form of 

        physical mutilation which the law sanctioned.  In antiquity the practice of 

        circumcision was thought to have certain positive hygienic values.  Modern

        medicine recommends circumcision as a way of preventing penis cancer,

        although they have begun to question its value. 

              The laws governing sexual union were based on the concept of the 

        family social unit, and precluded inter-marriage and polygamy.  The union

        between a man & his paternal half-sister, a not infrequent occurrence in the

        patriarchal period, was forbidden.  Because of the dangers of marrying 

        someone too closely related to oneself, the Mosaic law made it clear that 

        marriage was forbidden with certain degrees of blood relationship, & bran-

        ded as incestuous many of the unions common in other nations. Marriage 

        to half-sisters, stepdaughters, daughters of a stepson or a step-daughter, &

        the sister of a living wife is prohibited.  

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              The moral nature of the Covenant demanded morality in the       

        “chosen people,” which meant no incest.  In view of the many sexual 

        deviations, the regulating of sexual function was of great importance if

        their witness to their Deity’s morality was to be believed.  A lack of

        restraint in marriage would subordinate the rights and privileges of 

        society as a whole to the dictates of a few dominant families, leading 

        to monopolized land and wealth, while the families themselves would

        inevitably be plagued with jealousy and intrigue.  Most believed that 

        biologically, prohibited unions led to reduced fertility & deterioration

        of physical and mental vigor.  In fact, there is no adequate reason for 

        regarding the prohibited unions as particularly dangerous. 
              Provisions for individual sexual hygiene form an important part

        of the Levitical approach to health.  The sexual act was associated with

        concepts of uncleanness. It is probable that the feelings of uncleanness

        were intended to serve as a form of control over sexual activity, and 

        as a safeguard against the promiscuity of the Canaanites or other con-

        temporary nations. 

                   The presence of blood, forbidden in all forms to the Hebrews, 

        meant that menstruation was a particularly defiling occurrence.  Any

        object of contact with a woman during the period of menstruation was

        considered unclean.  Levitical law saw the possibility of intercourse 

        during menstruation & legislated against it vigorously.  Any man who

        came into contact with the menstrual discharge was considered cere-

        monially unclean for seven days.  Coitus interruptus was held to be 

        an improper use of natural instinct.
              In instances of prolonged or heavy menstruation, the woman 

        was regarded as unclean throughout the period of discharge and for 

        seven further days.  Childbirth was surrounded with certain degrees 

        of defilement, although the baby itself was always considered to be 

        ceremonially clean.  The defiling influence of the birth of a female 

        child was greater than the birth of a male child.  Under normal circum-

        stances the parents didn't cohabit again until the baby had been weaned.

        It could be as long as two years.   
              Defilement also occurred from seminal emissions, and could 

        be removed by washing when a prescribed period of time had elapsed.

        Deviations of sexual practice such as homosexuality & bestiality were

        rigidly condemned in the Mosaic code.  These laws employed religious

        sanctions, restrictions on human sexual behavior, and at the same time

        they laid considerable stress on personal hygiene, when such matters 

        were regarded with varying degrees of indifference.  The prescribing 

        of a period of isolation was an important aspect of the preventive 

        approach implicit in this legislation.
              Among the Hebrews great emphasis was placed upon the 

        washing of the body, despite the frequent shortages of water.  These

        ceremonial washings were in a general religious sense symbolic of the

        removal of sin or moral defilement.  The stress laid on the cleansing 

        of anything which might be suspected of defilement was of fundamen-

        tal importance.  The risk of disease would be reduced appreciably, 

        while the isolation of potential carriers of disease for a specified period  

        would also help control the incidence of disease.
              The nomadic tribes of antiquity paid scant attention to sanitary 

        practices.  Mosaic legislation laid down carefully regulated sanitary 

        procedures for the Israelites.  The significance of the sanitary regulations

        is much greater than the amount of space they occupied in the Mosaic 

        preventive legislation.  A measure of control over air-borne & fly-borne

        plagues was afforded.  Thus an advanced degree of protection from 

        infectious disease was afforded.  The preventive approach was the 

        special contribution of the Hebrews to medical theory, and the principles

        enshrined in the OT are in harmony with the basic precepts of contempo-

        rary medicine.

                   In the light of earlier observations it will appear that health was a 

        divine gift.  When disease occurred, the sufferer could only look to God,

        the Physician; any human aid would usurp divine prerogatives.  Because

        sickness was a spiritual matter, healing could only properly follow a revi-

        val or revitalizing of the relationship between the individual and God.  

        There is no outline of medical treatment for disease in the OT. 

                   Jesus’ Approach to Health and Healing—While Jesus Christ 

        didn't attempt to explain disease, his attitude toward it marked an advance

        in thought on the OT opinions. Instead of showing contempt for the sick, 

        Jesus showed that his ministry was closely related to the frailty of body 

        and soul. Jesus was firmly convinced of God’s purpose for human whole-

        ness and salvation, and never once supported the OT concept of disease 

        as God’s punishment. He frequently envisaged disease as evil producing 

        imbalance within the personality.

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           Because Jesus regarded each individual separately, he was able 

    see the influence of body and mind upon each other, concerning him-

        self with the sufferer’s body, mind, and spirit. His encounter with the 

        Samaritan woman changed a casual conversation into a powerful analy-

        sis, and confronted her with the person of the living Christ as the answer

        to her deepest needs. This talk is a superb example of non-directive coun-

        seling Any knowledge of Jesus’ approach to healing must come mostly 

        from inference, since his healing acts were not described in clinical 

        language. 

                   He rejected the idea that sickness was God’s punishment, nor

        did he encourage the belief that the sufferer ought to remain ill in order

        acquire courage or learn patience. Fundamental to his healings was his 

        conviction that disease was not a part of the divine order of things. In 

        some instances he attributed the incidence of illness to the evil in human

        life. Since his mission was to destroy the Devil’s works, it followed that

        he would heal the sick and the diseased. The circumstances largely deter-

        mined the mechanisms he employed, but these were generally secondary

        to his desire to grapple with sin.
              Jesus’ ministry was as much to the mind as to the body. He was 

        acutely aware of the place emotional conflict and “negative” emotions 

        had in causing disease. Jesus was aware that the bias towards evil in 

        humans meant that sin could have a great affect on one’s life. Modern 

        psychiatry has shown that sin’s effects takes place in the unconscious 

        mind. Christ’s healing influence and spiritual authority penetrated this 

        level, where many disorders have their beginning. It is interesting to note

        that different techniques were used for eachperson, indicating that Jesus 

        diagnosed the patient’s ailment and was aware of what contributed to it. 

                   Apparently, Jesus was trying through healings to raise the degree  

        of the sufferers’ spirituality. It was Jesus’ desire that people should be won

        for the divine kingdom. Entrance into the spiritual realm indicated the 

        operation of divine love, and human faith, by either the sick person or 

        someone close to them. The degree of faith varied with each person, but 

        Jesus called for some measure of faith to be present in each healing. Cer-

        tain healings took place without faith being mentioned, but it was implied

        in the sufferer’s response to Jesus’ words.

                   It must be remembered that the therapy Jesus did contained

        spiritual and psychological components, but the healings were more than

        the work of a shrewd psychologist. Matthew envisaged Christ’s healing 

        ministry as a fulfillment of Isaiah 53, which speaks of God’s Servant. The

        Hebrew text employs the simple words for “diseases” and “pains,” which

        relates the healing of sickness directly to the Servant’s work. If the Chris-

        tian church interprets the Isaiah passages correctly, it would appear that 

        the incarnate Lord dealt with disease, sickness, & human sin on the cross.

        His atonement avails for the mind, body and soul of a person.
              The restoration of the sick formed part of apostolic practices as 

        well, in conformity with what Christ commanded. In the days after Pente-

        cost, many healings took place at the hands of the apostles. In the main, 

        however, the healings were achieved by a powerful degree of suggestion

        linked to the sufferer’s faith. As time passed, the treatment of disease 

        became more uniform, employing the name or the power of Christ in 

        response to the expectant trust of the sufferer. From the experience of 

        Paul with Trophimus, it may be concluded that the healing power given 

        to the apostles diminished with the passing of time.
              There is little mention of anything specifically medical in biblical  

        literature. Consequently, there are no written lists of drugs such as have 

        survived from Mesopotamia and Egyptian cultures. Incense was an impor-

        tant tool in healing. While its primary function was to honor God in the 

        sanctuary, it probably served as a fumigant and deodorant also. The use 

        of aromatic oils & perfumes, such as myrtle, saffron, aloes, cassia, myrrh, 

        spikenard, & cinnamon, for personal hygiene was dictated by climatic &

        other considerations.
              Therapeutic substances in use among the Hebrews included the 

        renowned balm of Gilead as an unguent preparation. A number of herbs 

        were employed, including fennel, dill, spelt, cumin, anise, and the caper 

        berry. Olive oil was frequently administered internally and externally. 

        Herbs of a culinary nature, like dill, fennel, cumin, anise, spelt, marjoram,

        thyme, mint, and sage, played a prominent part in Hebrew diet. The bitter

        herbs of Exodus 12 were probably lettuce, endive, chicory, & water cress.

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HEAP OF STONES  (גל אבנים (gal  ‘eh beh neem))  A symbol used in 

        several different ways.  A heap of stones was raised over the body of

        Achan after he and his family had been stoned and burned.  A heap 

        of stones was made as a witness to the compact between Jacob and 

        Laban. 

                   It is also used with the connotation of a place which has be-

        come a heap of ruins & a reminder of the fate which God has in store

        for the sinful.  To warn that a city or house or an altar will become a 

        stone heap is to announce impending destruction.  The ancient Israe-

        lite, as the modern Arab peasant, thought that such heaps of stones 

        were inhabited by evil or dangerous spirits. 

HEART  (לב (labe); kardia (kar dee ah))  In the Bible it is the central and

        unifying organ of personal life.  The ancient Hebrews tended to attribute 

        psychological functions to certain organs of the body.  Of all such organs

        the heart was the chief, the center of physical vitality.  In the recesses of 

        the heart dwelt the thoughts, plans, attitudes, fears, & hopes which deter-

        mined the character of an individual. 

                   The word “heart” is only rarely used in a purely physical sense; it 

        denotes primarily the psyche at its deepest level.  All the emotions of which

        a person is capable may be attributed to the heart.  More than that, it is a 

        distinctly Hebrew conception that the heart is the center of intellectual life.

        The Hebrew language can hardly express the idea “to think” except by the 

        phrase “to say in the heart.” 

                   From this idea it is a natural step to the thought that it is the center 

        of the will and the moral life.  The hard or stubborn heart is sometimes 

        described as “uncircumcised.”  The idea of “perfection” or “wholeness” is

        also conveyed by the phrase “with all the heart.”  The heart, as the inner-

        most spring of the human personality, is directly open to God and God’s 

        influence, while at the same time being naturally inclined to evil.  As such,

        its betterment must lie rather in God’s transforming grace than in any

        educational activity on the part of humans. 

                   Since the term “heart” can mean the totality of feelings, thoughts,

        & desires of a person at the deepest source in his inner life, it sometimes 

        has the modern psychological term “personality.”  For Hebrews, persona-

        lity was diffused through the whole of the body, & the assignment of special

        functions to particular organs was loose and often inconsistent.

HEARTH  (יקוד (yek ode), burning; מוקדה (mo ked ow); הראל (har el) 

        and  ריאל(ar ee el), both translate as “altar”  or “hearth”)  In biblical times 

        the hearth was a depression in the floor for cooking food.  Ezekiel 43 uses

        both harel and ariel for the uppermost ledge of the altar of burnt offering,

        upon which the sacrifice was laid.  

HEAT AND COLD  (חם (khome), heat; חרה (khaw raw), cold; kauma 

        (kaw ma), heat; yucoV  (psoo kos), cold)  Extremes of atmospheric 

        temperature, annual and daily.

HEATH (ערער (‘ar ‘ar), needy, outcast)  The true heath rarely is found in 

        Bible lands and doesn’t fit the geographical associations of the passage.   

HEAVE OFFERING (תרומה (ter oo maw))  The portions of sacrifices and 

        offerings which were set apart, removed, or taken up, elevated, or “heaved”

        for Yahweh and the priests.

HEAVEN  (שמים (shaw maw yeem); רקיע (raw kee ah), firmament; רק 

        (rak); ouranoV (oo rah nos))  The word “heaven” is used in the Bible

        in 2 senses: the upper part of the cosmic ocean which envelops the earth;

        or the immediate ceiling or canopy of the earth.  Heaven is portrayed: as 

        a metal strip; as a curtain; as a garment; with windows; with water skins; 

        with storehouses; with levels; and with pillars. 

                   The word raqia is translated “firmament,” but the word denotes 

        properly a strip of hammered metal.  In Job 26, God is said to polish it by

        breathing upon it with his wind.  Alternatively, the expanse is portrayed 

        as a strip of gauze stretched like a tent or a curtain.  Lastly, heaven is 

        regarded as a garment, an outspread blanket, a mantle or wrap in which 

        God enfolds God’s self.  Several other world religions also use this image.

H-23

                 

                The firmament, or celestial dam, was believed to be punctuated at 

        intervals by grilles or sluices, through which the rain was released. These  

        sluices have their counterparts in the “springs” or “fountains.”  The celes-

        tial waters were also conceived as being stored in skins or bottles, which 

        were tilted and emptied by God at his good pleasure, an image also found

        in other religions.  In the heavens were located the store-houses of the 

        winds, the hail, & darkness. Heaven was thought to rest upon pillars, which

        is also found in other religions. 

                   Finally, the concept of successive stages or strata of heaven is no-

        where explicitly articulated in the Old Testament.  It is in the Apocrypha 

        that we first encounter that notion of the seven heavens which was later to

        become a commonplace theme of Jewish and Arabic folklore. In the New

        Testament, only three strata appear to be recognized, which is the same as

        the number found in rabbinic sources. 

HEBER (הבר, companion)  1.  The ancestor & origin of the name for an impor-

        tant clan of the tribe of Asher.   2.  A Kenite; Jael's husband, the woman 

        who killed Sisera.  3.  A man or family of the tribe of Judah.  4.  A family

        of the tribe of Benjamin.

HEBREW LANGUAGE (עברי ('ib ree), from the root meaning to "pass over")

        In order to understand the Sitz im Leben, the "life situation" of the Old 

        Testament (OT), we must understand OT culture & the Hebrew culture, 

        of which the Hebrew language was a part.  The name of the ancestor Eber,

        son of Shem, is probably a construction from the name of the people.  It is

        a term denoting the Israelites and is often used by foreigners.  The word is

        also used by the Hebrews as a name for themselves.  In such cases, "He-

        brew" and "Israelite" would be interchangeable.  In other passages, the 

        Hebrews are a separate ethnic group in Canaan.

                   Eber's descendants include Abraham, Nahor, and Lot.  According 

        to the OT, Abraham is the ancestor of the Hebrews, Nahor the ancestor of

        the Arameans, and Lot the ancestor of the Moabites and the Ammonites.  

        The genealogies we have are constructions, and individuals appearing in 

        them may reflect ancient ethnic groups, towns, or countries.  Later inva-

        sions into Canaan are reflected in the traditions about the exodus from 

        Egypt and the entrance into Canaan under Joshua.  After the expulsion of

        the Hyksos from Egypt in the early 1500s several migrations probably 

        took place during more than a century. 

                   The Hebrew language is a branch of Canaanite & Amorite; Canaa-

        nite and Amorite are ancestral dialects, the merging of which explains the

        growth of biblical Hebrew.  Some OT texts are written in a language of a 

        more ancient structure than others.  Biblical Hebrew, the closest relative 

        of which is Moabite, is the result of the linguistic development which took

        place since the time when Ugaritic texts were written between 2100-1500

        B.C. 

                   With the exception of the small sections (Ezra 4 & 7, Jeremiah 10,

        and Daniel 2-7) which are in the Aramaic language, and a number of odd

        words and names in different languages, the OT canonical books are in 

        the Hebrew language.  The Hebrew language is called the “language (lip)

        of Canaan”; Judean language is called yehudiyot (יהודית) "the language 

        of Judah.” In the New Testament, “in Hebrew” is used to designate both 

        Hebrew & Aramaic.  “Hebrew” 'ibriyot (ﬠבﬧיﬨ) is used only in the later

        rabbinic literature.  

                   Hebrew is one of the Semitic languages and shares the general 

        characteristics of 3-letter roots, having mainly consonants represented by

        the letters of its alphabet, and the simplicity of its sentence structure.  

        More specifically it belongs to the Canaanitish branch of the northwest 

        Semitic group; its closest connections are with Ugaritic, Phoenician, 

        Moabitish, and Edomitish.  Inscriptions from Byblos, dating from the 

        1700s B.C., & Ugaritic texts from the 1300s indicate that this Canaanitish

        was not a uniform language across the region.  There was an eastern 

        Canaanitish, as well as a northern and southern Canaanitish.  Semitic 

        people were trying to adapt Egyptian hieroglyphic into a Semitic alphabet,

        as well as using an alphabet based on Assyrian cuneiform signs long 

        before the Hebrews entered the land.

                   The Biblical tradition is that the Hebrews' ancestors were associated

        with the incoming Arameans.  These early Hebrews entered the southern 

        area of Palestine, and adopted the local dialect of southern Canaanitish as

        they settled.  The earliest evidence of it in monument form is the Gezer 

        Calendar of perhaps the 900s B.C.  Some of the early songs and other 

        passages embedded in the OT may have been composed as early as the 

        900s.  Evidence shows a northern and southern dialect of Hebrew, but it 

        was the Jerusalem dialect which gradually imposed itself as the standard 

        literary dialect. 

H-24

                   The earliest Hebrew writing so far known uses a form of the old  

        Canaanitish alphabet of 22 characters, but the language had a wider 

        range of sounds than these signs could express. The pronunciation of 

        several letters was indicated by the presence or absence of a dot.  He-

        brew, like most Semitic languages is written from right to left. 

                   Hebrew Phonetics & Grammar—In the ancient form of writing,

        consonants alone were written, & there was no indication of what vowels

        were to be used.  A first step toward indicating vowels was the use of ו, 

        י, ה, and to a lesser extent א, to represent long vowels.  The primary 

        Greek translation of the OT shows that they were used inconsistently in 

        the text from which that was translated. They were always regarded as 

        secondary to the texts. 

                   As Hebrew came to be less and less the language of common inter-

        course, however, it was needful to have some way of indicating more 

        fully the vowel sounds.  This was done by the so-called “pointing,” or 

        providing the consonants with small signs, written above, within, or below

        them, to indicate the vowels with which they are to be pronounced.  Two

        older systems of this pointing are the Babylonian and the Palestinian, 

        which were used only when it was necessary to clarify what word was 

        being used.

                   All three systems are the work of the schools, and would seem to 

        have appeared first in Mesopotamia in the 400s B.C.  Thus at best they 

        represent only the late tradition as word pronunciation.  There was no 

        pronunciation in the early writing & often not even word division.  One 

        attempt at minimizing some elements of confusion was the reserving of  

        a special form of 5 letters as final letters.  At the end of words, ך was 

        used for כ (k), ם was used for מ (m), ן was used for נ (n), ף was used

        for פ (p or ph), and ץ was used for צ (ts).  

                   The early writers of Hebrew would have been as little conscious 

        of grammar as were the pre-Islamic Arab poets.  However, as any lan-    

        guage comes more and more into use as a literary medium, it tends to 

        become "fixed."  In the case of Hebrew, the Jerusalem dialect came to be

        regarded as the standard form of the language.  It is doubtful that we can

        ever know the "when" & "how" of this process of "fixing," since we are 

        never sure which forms were written by the author and which are due to 

        later hands. 

                   Historical development in the language is discernible; the language

        of the poetical books, for example, is often more archaic.  The language 

        of such books as Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, the Song of Songs, Ecclesi-

        astes, and Esther reveals a later form of Hebrew, showing a development

        of certain words and grammatical forms borrowed from surrounding cul-

        tures.  The literature produced in the period after the close of the canon 

        uses a language which shows even further development. 

                   There has been continuous cultivation of Hebrew as a literary lan-

        guage from the 900s B.C. to modern times, but whether there was conti-

        nuity as a spoken language is debatable.  The language of the Mishna has

        been cited as evidence that Hebrew was still a spoken language.  It is not

        impossible that Hebrew may have continued to be spoken in limited 

        circles of pious Jews on through the Middle Ages. 

                   The grammar of biblical Hebrew may be briefly summarized.  

        Hebrew words, which are combined in meaningful arrangements to form

        sentences, belong to three categories:  nouns, verbs, and particles, which

        indicate varying types of relationship among nouns and verbs.  Two 

        genders are recognized, masculine & feminine; 3 persons, the speaker, 

        the one addressed, and the one absent; two numbers, singular and plural. 

                   The nouns includes pronouns, adjectives, & the numerals.  There

        is a definite article, which is the letter added at the beginning of a word.  

        Nouns may be an original 3-letter word, or they may be derived from a 

        3-letter verb.  Personal pronouns have a form separate from the word or 

        are added as a suffix at the end of a word.  The indefinite pronouns are 

        expressed by common nouns specialized in meaning.  The possessive is 

        indicated by a shortened form of the noun with a prefix or suffix.  The 

        dual ending is for the most part limited to things which go in pairs, and  

        may be added to either a masculine or feminine form.

                   For numbers, “one” is an adjective which follows its noun; “two”

        is the noun senayim or sethayim (masculine and feminine respectively) 

        in the dual form; the gender of the number agrees with the gender of the

        noun with which it stands.  “Three” to “ten” are nouns which are the 

        opposite gender of the nouns with which they stand.  The tens are the 

        plurals of the units, with the exception of 20, which is the plural of “ten.”

        There are special words for “hundred,” “thousand,” and “ten thousand.” 

                   There are no true tenses for the Hebrew verb, but there are three 

        states—perfect (e.g. “I wrote,”), imperfect (e.g. “I write,” “I am writing,”

        “I will write,”), and imperative or command (e.g. “Write!”).   Verbs are 

        inflected or changed for number, person, and gender.  The characteristic

        feature of the verb, however is its system of derived stems to represent 

        aspects of the verbal action.  In Hebrew there are 7 basic forms which 

        involve changes in the 3-letter root word, most often by adding a letter, 

        which transform the word into the active, passive, intensive, or causative

        sense of the original word.

H-25

                 Particles are also added to words, and are of various kinds.  The

        letter ה (he) and the letters אי (ah ee) are added for questions of “where.”

        The interrogative pronouns are מי (me) for “who,” and מה (meh) for 

        “what.”  The negative particle is לא (low) for “not,” and אל (al) for 

        “nothing” or “never.”  The conditional articles are אם (eem) for “lo!” or 

        “if,” לו (loo) for “if,” and לולי (loo lay) for “if not.”  Other particles are

        prepositional and added to words.  ל (lah) is for “to” or “for;” ב (ba) is 

        for “in, at, by, with.”  The particle מן (min) is usually separate from the 

        word it is with and means “from” or “out of.”  There are no real Hebrew 

        adverbs in Hebrew. 

                   With limited grammar, it cannot be expected that biblical Hebrew

        should have the flexibility and adaptability that classical Greek has for 

        expressing thoughts.  The skill with which biblical writers have used the

        resources of the language is remarkable.  Sentences are of two kinds:  

        nominal, where the verb "to be" is understood in the sentence; & verbal,

        where the verb commonly precedes its subject.  The sentence order nor-

        mally is predicate, subject, object.

                   There is no verb “to have”; the possessive particles serve instead

        (e.g. “I shall have peace” is “It will be peaceful for me”).  Hebrew also 

        lacks that useful preposition “of;” it uses the form of adjective + noun 

        instead. This form of expression's great defect is that it isn't possible to 

        express the indefiniteness of one member & the definiteness of the other

        at the same time.

                   Sentence formation in early Hebrew was almost exclusively whole

        strings of sentences being connected merely by “and.”  The monotony is

        relieved by skillful use of the perfect and imperfect states.  The perfect 

        can be used for things conceptually finished and complete as well as for 

        those actually completed.  Similarly imperfect may be used for things 

        which have not yet happened, or for things which are conceptually incom-

        plete though they have already happened.  There is also a characteristic 

        use of the imperative to replace the conditional sentence.  The most char-

        acteristic construction is when a narrative passage begins with a verb 

        expressing an imperfect state, & all the succeeding verbs are expressed  

        in the perfect state.  In other words, the imperfect expresses an action yet 

        to take place, and all the other actions are regarded as an inevitable result 

        of that action. 

                   Poetic Forms and Loan Words—Hebrew poetry, like the poetry 

        of other languages, preserved many archaic forms & constructions.  There

        is no regular rhyming, but there is a rhythmic structure dependent on the 

        accent, and a characteristic feature of parallelism.  All attempts to find in 

        biblical Hebrew generally applicable patterns for the grouping of verses 

        into stanzas have failed. 

                   There is a considerable body of vocabulary borrowed from surroun-

        ding peoples & adopted into Hebrew with very little sense of their original

        meaning.  They may be words from the pre-Semitic inhabitants of the land,

        or words borrowed from one or another of the non-Semitic people with 

        whom the Hebrews had contact.  Several Hebrew names of months are 

        Akkadian or are descriptive of different civil officials or classes of people.

        Another group is of Egyptian origin and has to do with luxury items; words

        for other luxury items seem to have come from India.  In writings from 

        the Persian period we find words from Iran having to do with government

        offices and functions. 

HEBREW RELIGION.  Israel's religion was a phenomenon unique in the

        ancient world.  It first appeared along with the emergence of the Israelite

        people in the 1200s B.C., and had a history of approximately a thousand 

        years before becoming the Judaism that existed in the centuries immedi-

        ately before Christianity.  This 1,000-year history wasn't an evolution from

        lower forms of religion to a higher one.  Israel's faith retained throughout

        its history the essential and distinctive character with which it began.  

                     List of Topics—1. Religion of the Patriarchs;    

        2. Formative-Period;       3. [Covenant Response and Hope];      

        4. [God's Uniqueness];      5. [Israel's Institutions];      

        6. Monarchy: Saul; David; Solomon;       7. [Changes Under the         Monarchy];      8. [Israel’s (Northern Kingdom’s) Cult];      

        9. 700s B.C. [and Prophets] to Jerusalem’s Fall;      10. [Josiah's         Reforms];       11. Exile and Beyond;       12. [ Judaism: Mono-            theism; Keeping the Law; The Book].

                   1. Religion of the Patriarchs—Though Israel's distinctive religion

        began with Moses, it was prepared for by the religion of the patriarchs,   

        who were part of a semi-nomadic migration to Palestine from 2000-1500

        B.C.  Their religion was of a distinctive sort quite different from the offi-

        cial paganism of the surrounding lands.  Their God was the God of the 

        clan, the personal God of the clan chief. 

                   The clan had archaic names for its deity (e.g. “the God (shield?) of

        Abraham”; “the fear (kinsman) of Isaac”; and “the Mighty One of Jacob.”).

        There were also personal names, such as Abiram and Ahimelech, in which

        God is spoken of as the "(divine) father/ brother” of the worshiper.  The 

        God of the patriarch was the unseen head of the clan; this God's cult was 

        simple and presided over by the clan father himself.

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                As patriarchs entered Palestine, their cults were carried on at local

        shrines, and their gods were no doubt identified with the gods worshiped

        there.  The patriarchs worshiped God under the name El, often with a 

        descriptive word attached to it.  While these gods were worshiped locally,

        the patriarchal deity was no local god, but the patron deity of the clan 

        over whose fortunes that god watched.  As the patriarchal stock evolved 

        into Israel, their gods were identified with Yahweh and their traditions 

        were normalized as those of all Israel.  Their religion, with its sense of 

        an intimate bond supported by covenant & promise, profoundly influ-

        enced  Israel's faith.  It is probable that much of Israel's legal tradition 

        came to her through her own patriarchal ancestors rather than through 

        Canaanite mediation. 

                   2. Formative Period—Although it adapted practices of pre-Mosaic

        origin, Israel's religion began, as Israel did, in the events of the Exodus 

        and Sinai.  Its founder was Moses.  Studies revealed a considerable body 

        of material apparently stemming from Israel's formative period, including

        cultic confessions, poems, the Decalogue, and the Book of the Covenant.  

        From material of this sort a fair picture of Israel's religion in the formative 

        period may be drawn.  

                   Israel's religion did not center in an idea of God, but in the memory

        of a historical event as interpreted by faith.  It was a response to that event 

        in covenant form.  In that event a group of Hebrews, who had been held as

        state slaves in Egypt, were led from there by Moses, who in turn was led 

        by the “new” God, Yahweh, to the accompaniment of happenings so 

        marvelous that they were never forgotten.  

                    This rescue was interpreted as an act of Yahweh's unmerited favor 

        calling a people from bondage to God’s self.  These Hebrews then moved 

        to Sinai, where they made a solemn covenant with Yahweh to be Yahweh’s

        people.  A new society was thus formed where none had been before; their 

        obligation was a covenant response to the favor of Yahweh already 

        experienced. 

                   3. [Covenant Response and Hope]—The covenant form is an an-

        cient one which has its closest parallel in certain Hittite suzerainty treaties

        of a day slightly before that of Moses.  The King reminds them of his bene-

        volent acts, lays down the stipulations which he imposes and which they 

        are to accept.  These typically include the prohibition of foreign relations, 

        & of enmity with others of his vassals.  Unlimited trust is to be felt towards

        the Great King.  Vassals are to appear before him annually with tribute.  A 

        copy of the treaty is to be placed in the shrine & periodically read publicly.

        Sanctions are supplied by a series of blessings and cursings. 

                   The covenant was no bargain between equals, but a vassal's

        acceptance of the overlord's terms.  Early Israel was a primitive theocracy 

        in which Yahweh was king.  The covenant could be maintained only so 

        long as the Overlord's stipulations were met.  The heart of these was that 

        Israel honor Yahweh and have nothing to do with any other god. 

                  A note of hope & promise is also primitive.  This had been an origi-

        nal element in the religion of the patriarchs.  Yahweh's call to Israel in 

        Egypt had come precisely as one to a new future and to hope.  The earliest

        poems reveal a robust confidence that Israel will be assured her land, 

        given all material blessings, and made a great people victorious over all 

        her foes. 

                   Though Israel's religion did not center in a doctrine, her notion of  

        God was unique from the beginning.  Israel’s God was called Yahweh.  

        Though there is no agreement as to the meaning of this name, it is proba-

        bly best taken as a causative verb “to be” (He causes existence).  In the 

        course of time the original meaning was lost, & Yahweh became a proper 

        name. The name shows that Israel's God was from the beginning a high 

        God of cosmic domain.  Whether or not a God called Yahweh was wor-

        shiped before Moses is unknown.

                   4. [God's Uniqueness]—From the beginning Israel was forbidden

        to worship any god but Yahweh.  So marvelous were his acts, Israel didn't 

        conceive of  Yahweh as having any rival.  Yahweh created the universe 

        quite alone.  For this reason Israel created no myth.  Her earliest poems 

        show that she was free of thinking in terms of myths.  Yahweh did have a

        heavenly host that was tempting to worship, but this was always prohibi-

        ted.  Even the gods of the patriarchs survived only in identification with 

        Yahweh.  Early Israel did not explicitly deny that other gods existed, but 

        if their existence was not denied, neither was their status as gods tolerantly

        granted.  They were robbed of all that made them gods, and were rendered

        nonentities, were undeified.

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            Yahweh differed from the ancient world’s pagan gods in Yahweh’s

        essential nature.  No image of Yahweh could be made, and although God

        manifested power through nature, no one aspect of nature was more cha-

        racteristic of God than another.  God was not to be seen as a fertility god.

        Nature itself was robbed of personality.  It was primarily in historical 

        events that Yahweh manifested the existence of Yahweh.  Israel's religion

        offered no ritual technique for manipulating the unseen powers of nature

        for selfish ends.  God was one who had called Israel from bondage to a 

        new future as God’s people, and who demanded her obedience.

                   5. [Israel's Institutions]—Israel's faith expressed itself in certain 

        tangible institutions.  Chief among these was her tribal league.  Israel 

        began her history as a league of 12 tribes, a sacral league of clans united

        in covenant with Yahweh.  There was no machinery of statehood whatso-

        ever.  The clans enjoyed complete independence, being obligated only to

        assist in the care of the central shrine and to respond to the call to arms.  

        In times of danger there would arise someone endowed with the divine 

        Spirit, a charismatic leader called a judge.  But the authority of the judge

        as not permanent or hereditary.  He was in no sense a king.  The tribal 

        league persisted for some 200 years, and in it Israel's distinctive institu-

        tions gained normative form. 

                   The focal point of the league was the tent shrine, housing the ark 

        of the covenant, which came finally to rest in Shiloh, where it remained 

        as long as the tribal league endured.  Clans would gather on feast days to

        seek the presence of Yahweh and to renew their allegiance to Yahweh.  

        Shiloh was the heart of the covenant league.  This shrine had a clergy 

        claiming Levitic lineage.  Though the later theory that all cultic personnel

        must be of the clan Levi didn't then apply, Levites enjoyed a great prestige.

        Since “Levite” could also refer to one pledged by vow, men of various 

        clans came gradually to be reckoned to Levi. 

                    As was true of all ancient religions, Israel's cult involved various 

        kinds of sacrifice.  A precise description of early sacrificial ritual is impos-

        sible.  In the wilderness it was certainly simple, and early Hebrew sacrifice

        had many parallels with Canaanite practice.  We may assume that as Israel

        entered Palestine, her worship was enriched by borrowing, and what was 

        borrowed was given the rationale of Yahwistic faith.

                    At the heart of Israel’s cult wasn't sacrifice, but great annual feasts,

        such as Passover, Feast of Weeks, & Feast of Booths, among others.  All

        these were older than Israel and, except for Passover, were of agricultural 

        origin.  Israel gave them a new meaning, making them celebrations of Yah-

        weh's historic acts in the Exodus.  Israel’s cult was thus no “history-less” 

        maintainer of material well-being, but a reminder of history. 

                    Since Israel's existence was based on her covenant with Yahweh, 

        covenant law was a central factor in her life from the beginning.  Laws fall

        into two general categories as regards form:  casuistic (“if a man—”) and 

        apodictic (“thou shalt [not]”).  Casuistic have numerous Mesopotamian 

        parallels, while apodictic are Israel's distinctive contribution and state the 

        covenant's basic stipulations.  As need arose to apply these stipulations to 

        tangible situations, Israel drew upon the legal tradition of her environment.

        Such borrowing was made into an expression of Israel's covenant faith.  

        Law was normally administered by the village elders in accordance with 

        tradition. The priest had the duty of deciding hard cases, and of giving 

        instruction on the law’s basis. 

                   6. [Monarchy: Saul, David, and Solomon]—The period of Judges

        was a period of adjustment to situations, of the disintegration of old pat-

        terns & the intrusion of new ones.  Israel was driven to set up a monarchy 

        when the tribal league was destroyed by the Philistines late in the 1000s.  

        The change brought an inner transformation of her society which affected  

        her religion profoundly.

                    The monarchy brought the old order’s end.  The first king, Saul, 

        was made king by popular acclamation.  Because of his inability to over-

        come tribal independence, he failed.  But David succeeded.  First beco-

        ming king over Judah with Philistine consent & popular acclaim, he was 

        later acclaimed king by the northern tribes as well.  Seizing Jerusalem, a 

        city which had been Canaanite, as his capital, he also conquered Pale-

        stine’s other Canaanite cities and incorporated them in the state, & subse-

        quently won a sizable empire. 

                    Since the state was created by David and centered on his person, 

        it was necessary that a son succeed him.  As the state was progressively 

        organized under the crown, the tribal system became of less practical im-

        portance, until it was replaced by twelve administrative districts.  The 

        basis of social obligation was no longer Yahweh's covenant, but the state. 

        A certain weakening of the covenant idea was inevitable.

                  Adaptation that had been going on since the Conquest brought 

        Israel into contact with Canaan's material culture.  As she adopted the  

        agrarian life, she was tempted to take up the practice of the fertility cult.  

        This was especially so since she had absorbed into her structure peoples 

        who lived in one place in the land.  Though these became worshipers of 

        Yahweh, their local cults continued. 

 H-28

                The monarchy speeded up the process.  David and Solomon incor-

        porated thousands of Canaanites into the state, most of whom became 

        no more than nominal Yahwists.  As Solomon made treaties & marriages

        into royal families from surrounding lands, the cults of his foreign wives

        were fostered in Jerusalem.  His treaty with Tyre was the most profitable

        one.  Solomon's temple, built by Canaanite architects, introduced in its 

        symbolism many features that were foreign to Israel.  The institutions 

        of state that Israel adopted had to be borrowed from outside, so rites &

        concepts that were unknown to Israel before were introduced.  As a 

        result, there was an inevitable reduction in the stress placed on the 

        Exodus and Sinai events. 

               7. Changes in the Monarchy—The social and economic 

        changes were sudden and drastic.  As a clan society, she had no ruling 

        class, no social distinction or extremes of wealth and poverty.  This was

        all changed.  The royal court grew very rich, and the urban population 

        grew very rapidly; this weakened tribal ties and traditions.  Further, the 

        demands of state required a burden of taxation.  Solomon ultimately 

        drafted his subjects into forced labor.  As life was regulated under the 

        crown, notions of aristocracy and class distinction began to intrude. 

                   David sought to link his state with the old order.  By installing the

        ark in Jerusalem, and by appointing Abiathar of the house of Eli as one 

        of its two chief priests, he was able to present the state as a patron and 

        protector of the national religious heritage.  Although some thought that

        the temple that Solomon later built was a dangerous innovation, and 

        although other shrines were freely tolerated, the link that was to bind the

        future of Israel's faith to Jerusalem had been forged. 

                   The king played a central role in the temple cult.  The dogma was

        developed that Yahweh had chosen Zion as his seat and promised to 

        David an eternal dynasty.  The temple cult was enriched by sacrifices, 

        feasts, music, and poetry early on in its history.  Literary activity flou-  

        rished as the traditions of the past were collected and written down.  

        Because of economic and sectional grievances, and because of tension

        between the old order and the new, the northern tribes rebelled when 

        Solomon died, and thereafter went their own way.  The North became

        the kingdom of Israel, and the South became the kingdom of Judah. 

                  Throughout her history Judah remained loyal to the house of 

        David, who had brought the nation to its Golden Age.  Later genera-

        tions idealized him and desired no future save in terms of a restoration

        of the glories of his rule.  The state's theological basis was Yahweh's 

        choice of Zion and David.  This dogma gave to Judah a remarkable 

        stability.  Yet it meant a further shift from the ancient notion of covenant.

                   The Davidic covenant was of a different type from that of Sinai. 

        In it, the relationship of God and nation was unconditional and based 

        on promise.  In the process of guaranteeing God's favor, the people's 

        obligation to God was obscured; stress shifted from obedience to cove-

        nant law to meticulous celebration of the ritual.  It was in this official 

        cult that hope & promise were given definitive form.  The hope persisted

        that a future king, perhaps the next one, would make the promises actual.

        As the element of promise indigenous to Israel's faith was shaped by the

        dynastic ideal, there were sown the seeds of hope of the Messiah. 

                   8. [Israel’s (Northern Kingdom’s) Cult]—The northern state of

        Israel began without dynastic tradition or official cult.  Selection of kings

        by prophetic designation and popular acclamation, though increasingly 

        a fiction, continued in principle until the days of Jehu.  Jeroboam I desig-

        nated Bethel and Dan, both ancient cult places claiming a Levitical tra-

        dition, as official shrines.  At both, Yahweh was seen as standing or 

        enthroned on a bull.  The bull had associations with the fertility cult and

        was thus an entering wedge for blending other beliefs into Yahweh's cult. 

                   This tendency was magnified by the large number of Canaanites 

        absorbed by Israel.  Shrines other than the two official ones, and of pre-

        Mosaic origins, were equally popular.  It was easy for pagan practices &

        notions to infiltrate the national religion.  In the 800s Israel was threa-

        tened with the official introduction of a foreign paganism, when Jezebel,

        wife of King Ahab brought the cult of the Tyrian Baal to the royal court.

        Many Israelites became overtly pagan, and those who resisted were per-

        secuted.  By the 700s Israel, even her official cult, was shot through with

        pagan practices.  Obligation to God was discharged by sacrifice & ritual,

        and God's promises were regarded as unconditional. 

                   Society meanwhile progressively disintegrated; covenant law 

        inevitably ceased to have meaning.  Though both Israel and Judah knew

        hard times both politically and economically, they were as well off as 

        they had been since Solomon.  In Israel wealthy landowners amassed

        property and dispossessed and enslaved the poor.  There was so such 

        moral degeneration that Israel's society was without moral standards.  

                   9. 700s B.C. [and Prophets] to Jerusalem’s Fall—Protest against

        these social trends was not slow in coming.  About the middle of the 700s

        B.C. there began the flowering of the prophetic movement in classical 

        form.  The prophets are not to be described as great spiritual pioneers.  

        On the contrary, they were heirs of a tradition centuries old who attacked

        abuses and pronounced judgment upon them in the light of the covenant 

        faith of Israel's past.

H-29

                   Prophets had been active in Israel since Saul; when they roused 

        their fellows to fight holy wars for Yahweh.  Later we find them on 

        good terms with the state yet reserving the right to criticize it.  After the

        North-South split, they were active in both states, but especially in 

        Israel (North).  They both encouraged and rebuked King Ahab.  Their 

        opposition to Jezebel's policy was met with persecution.  A split arose 

        in their ranks, with certain of them opposing both the state and those 

        prophets who sided with it.  Jehu's purge probably satisfied most of 

        them; making peace with the state, they placed their patriotic fervor &

        their integrity at its disposal.  The classical prophets held these profes-

        sionals in contempt, and broke with them. 

                   The first two prophets, Amos & Hosea, addressed the northern

        state in the generation before its fall.  Amos attacked mainly social 

        injustice, while Hosea's main target was the mixing of Yahwism with 

        paganism and outright apostasy.  Rejecting the empty paganized cult, 

        & the notion that Yahweh's promises were unconditional, both preached

        a message of judgment.  Though they called for penitence, they were 

        sure that the nation was doomed.  But neither they nor the prophets 

        who followed them sought to overthrow the state.  Yahweh was the 

        one to execute sentence.  Yet for all this, the note of promise was not 

        given up.

                   As Israel collapsed, the prophetic movement was carried for-

        ward in Judah (South) by Isaiah and Micah, who followed the pattern

        of Amos and Hosea.  All injustice, idolatrous practice, and rebellion 

        against Yahweh was viewed as breaches of the covenant.  Isaiah and 

        Micah also attacked the external cult by which the nation hoped to 

        satisfy God's demands, and the corrupt clergy as well.  They preached

        a message of judgment.  Isaiah in particular, was influenced by the 

        Davidic covenant's official theology.  His message was a powerful 

        reaffirmation of that theology, and a summons to the nation to trust in

        its promises; for Isaiah, the sole hope of Judah was to trust in Yahweh.

        As in the Davidic covenant, sinful Judah will be disciplined but not 

        cast off utterly.  Isaiah's hope was positively expressed in the promise

        of a just and victorious king of David's line.  Here the hope of the 

        Messiah, which became the norm in later Judaism, took shape. 

                   Judah had always gone back and forth between periods of reli-

        gious laxity and efforts at reform.  In the late 700s, the reform move-

        ment gained momentum, beginning with Hezekiah.  His predecessor 

        Ahaz had been forced to give official recognition to Assyria's gods.  

        As the Assyrian cults were offensive not only to loyal Yahwists but to

        all patriotic citizens as well, Hezekiah's struggle for independence 

        naturally led to their removal, & also awakened a nationalistic reaction

        against all religious features considered foreign.  Prophetic threats of 

        fate for Jerusalem similar to that of Samaria also played a part.  Effort

        was also made to close outlying shrines of Yahweh.  But Hezekiah's 

        reform didn't endure; the people weren't ready for it.  When Manasseh

        resumed loyalty to Assyria, the Assyrian cults were reinstated.  All 

        sorts of pagan rites were fostered.  Israel's religion was in danger of 

        becoming a polytheism. 

                   10. Josiah's Reforms—Assyria’s collapse during Josiah’s reign

        left Judah open to the most sweeping reform of her history, aimed at    

        purging everything foreign.  There was a search for security in the 

        surer things of the past.  Reform was given added impetus & direction 

        by the discovery of a “book of the law,” which was probably some form

        of Deuteronomy.  Reflecting faithfully the Mosaic covenant's obliga-

        tions on both sides of the relationship between God and God's people, 

        Deuteronomy declares that the national hope lies in keeping covenant. 

                   The reform resulted in a ruthless purge of all pagan cults & prac-

        tices, both native and foreign.  It also abolished shrines of Yahweh 

        throughout Judah.  The ideal of a purified Israel united under the throne

        of David seemed to be largely realized.  Centralization of the cult was, 

        however, resisted & never accepted by many. The written law was ele-

        vated at the expense of the prophetic word.  The confidence grew that 

        the national safety had been secured, by meeting the demands of cove-

        nant law through cultic reform and ritual.  With Josiah's death in 609, 

        Judah's independence ended.  Subject first to Egypt, then to Babylon, 

        she was destroyed by the latter in 587. 

                   Josiah's violent death and independence’s end seemed to many a

        contradiction of Deuteronomy’s theology.  Under Jehoiakim, the reform

        was abandoned, yet clergy and people alike clung to the official dogma,

        that national safety was assured by the presence of Yahweh's temple.  

        Down to the end a miraculous intervention was expected.  The nation’s

        fall raised doubts about the national religion’s truth, as popularly under-

        stood, into question. 

                   Israel's faith was saved in good part by prophets who addressed 

        the nation in its darkest hour.  In all of them, the problem of the divine 

        justice is the central issue.  Jeremiah rejected the popular trust in the 

        permanence of temple and dynasty.  In his writing, the Babylonians 

        were the instruments of divine judgment.  Ezekiel declared that the 

        present calamity wasn't only God's doing, but positively his vindication

        as the righteous and sovereign Lord.  Explained thus, tragedy could not  

        destroy Israel's faith. 

H-30

                The prophets prepared for the survival of faith in other ways.  Jere-

        miah insisted on a repentant heart rather than cult ritual, & Ezekiel based

        divine justice on the actions of the individual.  The summons of both 

        these prophets to individual decision laid the foundation for a new com-

        munity of faith; both regarded the Exile as an interim, a purification.  

        Hope to both of them thus lay in a new act of divine grace.  Exiled Israel

        was thus not left hopeless, but could look forward to the promise of a 

        new future. 

                   11. Exile and Beyond—The Exile was a watershed in the history 

        of Israel's religion; the postexilic community gave the faith of old Israel 

        a new form.  In 587, Jewish life in Palestine was totally disrupted.  The 

        Jews around Jerusalem were few and poor.  Although the Exile was a 

        grievous emergency, Israel's faith persisted through it with an amazing 

        tenacity.  Traditions were jealously guarded, handed down & sometimes

        edited.  The sayings of the prophets were likewise preserved.  Yet, many

        still viewed the national disaster as proof of Yahweh's powerlessness, and

        these were acutely tempted to turn to the worship of Babylon's presuma-

        bly mightier gods.  The Exile had opened new horizons, because her faith

        could no longer continue as a national cult.  It had to adapt itself to the 

        great nations and their gods as never before, if it was to survive. 

                   With the comforting assurance that the penalty for sin had now 

        been paid, the writer of the second part of Isaiah declared that the Exile 

        was soon to end.  There would be a great new exodus, with Yahweh lea-

        ding the flock of Israel back to Zion.  None is God but Yahweh, who is 

        creator.  Israel is Yahweh's chosen witness before the world that Yahweh 

        is God. 

                   Yet Israel's role is not to be a passive one; she is to be Yahweh's 

        servant to bring the light of Yahweh's rule to the nations.  In the figure of 

        the Servant of the Lord the prophet gave the national suffering and the 

        national hope profound reinterpretation.  Yahweh's purpose is to triumph 

        through his suffering, persecuted, and rejected Servant.  Israel's hope was

        given a novel pattern quite different from the popular one, and one which

        was richly played upon in the New Testament.

                   Having conquered Babylon, Cyrus allowed the Jews to re-establish

        their life in Palestine.  The resulting post-exilic community was a church 

        rather than a nation.  It understood itself as the remnant of Israel.  It was 

        not a national unit or, strictly speaking, an ethnic one—there were foreig-

        ners and proselytes.  The danger of assimilation by pagans had to be com-

        bated vigorously, which led to a growing particularism and a tension with 

        the universalism implicit in monotheistic faith.  Judaism did not become 

        an actively missionary religion; the tendency was to look down on the 

        Gentile and to wish as few dealings with them as possible.

                   12. Judaism: Monotheism; Keeping the Law; The Book—In 

        Judaism, monotheism triumphed completely.  The hard core of Judaism 

        turned from paganism & idolatry resolutely.  The divine name, Yahweh,  

        came to be considered too sacred to be spoken; & various substitutes for  

        it were developed.  There was profound devotional piety & an equally pro-

        found concern for the conduct of the good life.  Yet in all this Judaism had

        no doubt that her God alone was God.  As God was exalted above his 

        creation, great play was allowed for the role of angelic beings.  Partly  

        from reflection on the problem of evil and partly from outside influence,

        the figure of Satan developed from an accuser of evildoers into God's  

        great adversary, who tempts all to evil.  Yet no proper dualism emerged;  

        God remained the sovereign Lord in whose providence all things occur. 

                   Hope for the future, always present in Israel's faith continued.  The 

        old national hope of the messianic king attached itself to Zerubbabel, only

        to be disappointed.  This hope was divorced from the existing order and 

        attached to the new order which God would establish at the end of history.

        Later Hebrew prophecy turned almost entirely from present history to the 

        last events of Yahweh's judgment and the establishment of Yahweh's trium-

        phant rule. 

                   As prophecy died out, there emerged a literature which sought to 

        describe in cryptic language the final cosmic struggle between God and 

        evil.  In this literature there appears the figure of the Son of Man, a pre-

        existent heavenly deliverer who would come in glory at the end of days.  

        Judaism also began to develop a belief in the resurrection, a thing 

        unknown in old Israel.  It was a borrowed concept, but it was adapted to  

        the Judaic faith. 

                   Judaism's most characteristic feature was its stress on keeping

        the law; in fact, to be a Jew was to keep the law.  The prophets had ex-

        plained the Exile as a result of a breach of covenant law; and this naturally

        led people to take the law more seriously.  And the postexilic community 

        had been constituted by a covenant committing it to the observance of the 

        (now written) law.  As hope was pushed to the end of history, the law was 

        accorded absolute validity for regulating conduct; it became virtually the 

        whole content of the obligation.  The temple cult remained a requirement 

        of the law, but one of lesser importance than overall obedience to the law.  

        Every village had its synagogue, where the law was read and expounded.

        The law superseded both priestly powers and prophetic word; prophecy 

        ceased in Israel.

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               Judaism gradually developed a fixed, if unofficial, canon of scripture. 

        The 1st 5 books of the OT had authoritative status from the time of Ezra or

        soon after; and to this were subsequently added the prophets' books. By 

        the 100s B.C. most of the books of the OT as we know it were regarded 

        as holy scripture.  But the first five retained the pre-eminent position.  

        Judaism became a religion of the Book, committed to the observance of 

        written law. 

                   There was also the desire to build a “fence” around the law lest it be

        broken inadvertently.  The Pharisees arose as a class of scribes who devo-

        ted themselves wholly to studying the law and teaching it.  The oral law 

        became the hallmark of Judaism & ultimately crystallized into the Talmud.

        It enabled Judaism to survive when its temple was finally destroyed.  The 

        New Testament, however, affirms that this whole history of faith found its 

        conclusion in Christ, who is the fulfillment of its law and its hope, & who 

        gave to the Christian church, the Israel according to the Spirit, the awaited 

        new covenant. 

HEBREWS, LETTER TO THE.  The 19^th book of the New Testament (NT) 

        canon.  Although we call Hebrews a “letter,” it has no author’s name and 

        no addressee, nor can we recognize an occasion or purpose.  It was not 

        written by Paul; style, form, and Christology speak against his authorship. 

        The western part of the early church refused until about 300 A.D. to accept

        Hebrews into the NT canon.  It was not until Pope Innocent I (405) agreed 

        upon all 27 books, that Hebrew became a fully acknowledged part of the 

        NT canon.  The letter’s  christological parts alternate with moral appeals.  

        There is a constant rhythm between these 2 components.  Except for the 

        last 4 verses, which seem like Paul’s writing, the integrity of the letter is 

        not questionable.
          Neither the word “letter” nor the term “to write” occurs in Hebrews.  

        Instead, we find the terms “word,” “speech,” “proclamation”(logos).  

        Hebrews is a unique book in the NT canon, especially as regards literary 

        character.  It is an epistle, or literary piece meant for general reading.  A 

        sermon or lecture has been used, because the good style and rhetorical 

        forms of Greek suggest a teacher or preacher.  It is probable that we have 

        in this epistle several sermons combined and collected by the author 

        himself. 
              When the Old Testament (OT) is used here, it is taken from the 

        primary Greek OT.  Moses and Jesus are discussed together in a simple 

        comparison.  The Old Covenant is the anti-type of the New Covenant; the

        author regards Christianity in the historical continuity with Israel and 

        Judaism, even though the author considers Christianity superior. 
               The earliest witness is Clement of Alexandria, who tells that Paul 

        wrote the letter in the Hebrew language.  He further tries to explain why 

        Paul didn't mention his own name at the beginning.  Origen has his doubts

        and concludes:  “Who really wrote the letter is known to God alone.”  

        Hebrew was taken as Paul’s until the Reformation.  Today, we do not have

        the resources any longer to make a clear decision, except that it isn't Paul.

        Nothing can be derived from the title “To the Hebrews,” because there are

        too many attributes of the typical Jewish Christian literature missing from 

        this epistle.
           As to where the epistle was sent, Alexandria, Rome, and Palestine 

        have been mentioned.  For Alexandria, no weighty arguments can be 

        given, except for the epistle’s kinship with Philo’s writing.  For Rome as 

        destination, it is also noteworthy that Rome always preserved a tradition 

        that Paul wasn't the author.  The salutation “those who come from Italy” 

        could point to expatriates sending their greetings homeward.  Although 

        nothing can be said for sure, Rome is most likely the letter’s destination.  

        And the close relation of Hebrews to writings like I Clement & the Reve-

        lation of John speak for the time at the end of the first century (81-96).

                   Hebrews’ theology is that of a post-apostolic Greek Christianity.  

        Hebrews stresses the coming of the end; the present time is called “these  

        last days.”  This idea is emphasized for the practical purpose of overco-

        ming weariness and weakening of faith.  In response, Christians should 

        disassociate themselves from the world & live as strangers upon the earth.

        Hebrews affirms that Christ has “appeared once for all at the end of the 

        age.”  The affirmation that the end of the age is present is more of a 

        Gnostic idea than it is a Jewish one.  Connected with the end of this age is

        the idea of pilgrimage.  Israel as the people wandering through the wilder-

        ness can be recognized as the prototype of Christianity.  In our pilgrimage

        we have Christ as leader; Christians are to follow in his steps by suffering.

        It is the way to the heavenly Jerusalem, the “new and living way.”

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           The Christology of Hebrews is immediately developed in the opening chapter.  After the redemption “he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”  In Hebrews, there is no way to separate the sonship and the high priesthood of Christ; he was pre-existent and participated as Son in God’s creation.  He is God’s representative in the midst of this world and is our representative in heaven before God.  He is now the final one and has a cosmic power superior to angels and Moses.
           There is no explicit mentioning of Christ’s resurrection; the accent is upon his being in heaven.  In the same way, the crucifixion is not explicitly referred to, but is pre-supposed.  He had to suffer and undergo temptations, and because he did “he is able to help those who are tempted.”  He revealed himself as the very Messiah, the perfect one forever.
           The concept of Christ as the high priest runs through the letter as a whole.  By his death he unlocks the door to the eternal sanctuary in heaven.  His work means atonement for the sins of humans.  The title of high priest is used as if it was a familiar one to the readers.  With the philosopher Philo, Logos is also the high priest.  In Hebrews, Greek and Jewish traditions come together in this title and figure.  He is called by God, chosen from among men, acts on behalf of all, deals gently with all, is beset with weakness, is bound to offer sacrifice for himself, and he is bound to offer sacrifice for the sins of the people.  These characteristics and functions of the high priest explain the work of Christ Jesus.  The unique Melchizedek passages of Hebrews go back to Psalm 110 and perhaps to earliest liturgical traditions.  Melchizedek’s name means “Sedek is king,” or in Hebrews, “king of righteousness.”  Probably he is meant as the primeval man who returns as Messiah.  Philo also speaks of Melchizedek, so there must be a common tradition which is Gnostic in origin.
           In Hebrews more than in any other book of the New Testament canon, “faith becomes “faithfulness.”  “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  Faith is obedience to that word which God has finally spoken in Christ Jesus.  Confession is the human response to God’s action in Christ. 
           The christological intention of Hebrews leads to the primary point of the ethical admonitions by speaking of “Son and sons” of the first-born in the singular and giving an ethical implication.  The admonitions are primarily concerned with the danger of apostasy or weariness and lack of hope.  Faith is perceived as faithfulness and sin more as the weakening of faithfulness than as disobedience or actual deed.  The historical setting has more to do with Gnosticism, perhaps in Jewish form, than it does with rabbinical ideas.  The author makes use of Gnostic material in his own independent way. 

HEBRON  (הברון, alliance))  1.  A Levite, third son of Kohath and the origin of 

        the name for the Hebronites. 2.  Son of Mareshah in a Calebite genealogy. 

HEBRON (CITY) (הברון, alliance))  1.  A city about 30 km south of Jerusalem 

        and 27 km west of the Salt (Dead) Sea.  Hebron was built on the hill er-

        Rumeideh just west of the modern city.  Hebron was a Canaanite royal city 

        in the hill country of Judah, around 1350 B.C. 
              Abraham purchased the cave at Mamre, near Hebron, for a family 

        sepulcher from a Hittite chieftain named Ephron.  At the time of the foun-

        ding, it was called Kiriath-arba and later came to be called Hebron.  In the 

        1300s the Hebron region was ruled by a local prince, Shuwardata, who ap-

        pears in several of the Amarna Letters.  3 clans of Anakim lived at Hebron 

        in Moses' time.  A generation later Hoham, king of Hebron, died at the 

        hand of Joshua & his forces in the latter’s victory over the southern Cana-

        anite coalition.  

                   Hebron itself was destroyed and its population devoted to the sword.

        Hebron seems to have been reoccupied by the 3 clans of the Anakim and 

        wasn't effectively controlled by the Israelites until its recapture by Caleb’s 

        forces after Joshua’s death.  Hebron was designated a Levitical city and a 

        city of refuge.  In the royal administrative reorganization, it became a dis-

        trict capital. 

                   Hebron is prominent in the story of David’s early career. It was one 

        of the cities to receive a gift from David.  For the first 7½ years of his reign

        it was the southern kingdom's capital while Ishbosheth ruled the north from

        Mananaim.  Several of David’s sons, including Absalom, were born at He-

        bron.  After Ishbosheth’s assassination, the north was united with the 

        south, and the capital moved to the newly captured Jerusalem. 

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               Hebron was Absalom’s headquarters for his revolt against David.  

        Rehoboam (922-915 B.C.) had the fortifications at Hebron strengthened.  

        Hebron was probably occupied by Sennacherib in 701 and destroyed by 

        Nebuchadrezzar in 587. Hebron may have been a royal pottery at this time.

        It is not mentioned in the New Testament (See also entry in the appendix’s 

        Old Testament Apocrypha/ Influence Outside the Bible section.)

HEDGE (גדרה (geh day raw), fence; משוכה (mes oo kaw); שוך (sook))

        Hedges were constructed to protect vineyards from predators. Figuratively 

        the verb “hedge” is used to express God’s protection and his constraint. 

HEDGEHOG  (קפוד (kip pode), King James Version translates as “bittern”)

        Any small insect-eating mammals, around 25 to 30 cm long, covered with 

        a coat of short spines and having the power to roll themselves up in self-

        protection into a ball-like form.  The three passages that qippod appears in 

        describe inhabited areas which are to become desolate & the home of vari-

        ous wild creatures.

HEEL, LIFTED  (הגדיל עלי עקב (ha ga deal  ‘il lee  ‘ay keb), “made great the 

        heel [?] against me”)  The expression refers to the treachery of friends 

        (Job 13), who have interpreted the sick man’s distress as divine punish-

        ment, and have made him an object of social rejection.  It may have no 

        reference whatever to raising the heel to kick one and may simply mean 

        “has turned his back on me,” or “has turned his heel on me.”  Jesus ap-

        plies the words to Judas’ treachery & brought fresh significance to these 

        words.  The emphasis would seem to be that one who partook of one’s 

        bread, had violated the laws of hospitality, and had turned on his host. 

HEGAI  (הגי)  A eunuch of Ahasuerus, in charge of the women. 

HEGLAM  (הגלם, captivity) Son of Ehud, and the father of Uzza and Ahihud

        (I Chronicles 8). The father of Ehud is not mentioned in I Chronicles; in 

        Judges 3 he is Gera, grandson of Benjamin, father of both Ehud and the 

        Shimei who cursed David.  Gera would then be the ancestor and the ori-

        gin of the name for Heglam’s clan. 

HEIFER  (עגלת (‘eg lath))  The heifer was used on the threshing floor and pre-

        sumably for other agricultural work.  A three-year-old heifer was sacrificed 

        in the Lord’s covenant with Abraham.  The neck of a heifer was broken in 

        removing the guilt of a murder from an unknown assailant from a commu-

        nity.  The term “heifer” is used figuratively in Judges 14, Jeremiah 46 and 

        50, Hosea 4 & 10.  The phrase which the King James Version translates as

        “heifer of three years old” is in other translation taken to be a place name, 

        Eglath-shelishiyah. 

HEIR (יורש (yay roshe )) An owner of property’s son. The heir, as a child, was

        no more than a slave. Through Christ humankind ceased to be slaves and 

        become heirs. All of the poor are “heirs of the grace of life.” 

HELAH (הלאה, necklace)  One of the two wives of Ashhur, descendant of 

        Judah and ancestor of Tekoa. 

HELAM  (הילם, strength of the people)  A city near the northern boundary of 

        Gilead, between Damascus & Hamath, where David defeated the Syrians. 

HELBAH  (הלבה, fertility)  A town in Asher, from which the Israelites couldn't 

        expel the Canaanite population; it could be the same as Ahlab, because of 

        their similarity in Hebrew. 

HELBON  (הלבון, fertile)   A town northwest of Damascus, mentioned in the 

        lamentation for Tyre; particularly famous for its wine (Ezekiel 27). 

HELDAI (הלדי, mole (animal))   1.  One of David’s Mighty Men; a Netophathite 

        (II Samuel 23).      2.  One who brought gold and silver with which the pro-

        phet Zechariah was to make a crown for Joshua the high priest. 

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HELECH  (הילך, from the root meaning strength)  Possibly the Old Testament 

        name of Cilicia in Asia Minor.  Assyrian records refer to Cilicia as Hilakku.

        It revolted against Sennachraib in 696 & again under Esarhaddon (680-

        669).  There were mercenaries from Helech in the army of Tyre. 

HELEK (הלק, portion, lot)  A member of the Manasseh tribe, one of Manas-

        seh’s and Joseph’s descendants. 

HELEM  (הלם, blow)  A family of the tribe of Asher.  This name should proba-

        bly be Hotham (I Chronicles 7). 

HELEPH (הלף, exchange) A Naphtali border town, possibly to be identified 

        with modern-day Khirbet ’Arbathah. 

HELEZ  (הלץ, he has saved)    1.  One of David’s Mighty Men; either a Paltite 

        or a Peolonite; the latter is most likely the correct clan (II Samuel 23).      

        2.  A family of the tribe of Judah (I Chronicles 2). 

HELI  ( Hli)  The father or grandfather of Joseph in the genealogy of Jesus 

        (Luke 3). 

HELIOPOLIS (בית שמש (beth  sheh mesh, house of the sun)) The capital 

        of the Thirteenth Lower Egyptian nome, situated where the Nile Delta 

        begins, just northeast of modern-day Cairo.  In Genesis, its name is On. 

        Potiphera of the Joseph story is priest of that city.  Elsewhere Heliopolis is 

        mentioned only indirectly.

                   Heliopolis is perhaps best known as the home of the Egyptian theo-

        logy which bears its name.  The chief deity was Atum, which became 

        Atum-Re, the sun-god, who dominated the other gods: Shu (atmosphere); 

        Tefnut (moisture); Geb (earth); Nut (sky); Isis; Osiris; Seth; and Nephthys.

        Although Heliopolis played no important political role in Egyptian history,

        it remained one of its most outstanding cult centers.  The present site is re-

        latively poor in archaeological remains and shows no evidence of ancient 

        occupation after 525 B.C. 

HELKAI (הלקי, portion of the Lord) A priest, head of the Meriaoth house in the

        days of Joikim the high priest. 

HELKATH (הלקת, partition)  A Levitical border town in Asher, perhaps to be 

        identified with Tell el-Harbaj, located at the southern end of the Plain of 

        Acco in northern Israel, near the Mediterranean coast.  It is a low mound 

        with a surface of over 25,000 square meters.  It was occupied from 3000-

        2100 B.C., 1550-1200 B.C. and 1200-900 B.C. 

HELKATH-HAZZURIM (הלקת הצרים, field of sharp rocks) An area, presuma-

        bly near Gibeon’s Pool, the place where 12 of Joab’s men of war dueled 

        with 12 from the ranks of Abner. 

HELL.  See Dead, Abode of the; Gehenna. 

HELLENISM  The Greek spirit, character or civilization, or an enthusiasm for or

        devotion to this culture.  It is the civilization which spread over the Medi-

        terranean world as a result of Alexander’s conquests in the decade 334-

        325 B.C.  Unfortunately the aggressive actions of Jerusalem’s pro-Helle-

        nist party led to persecution.  It also created internal tensions with Juda-

        ism, resulting in attitudes of superiority which continued for centuries. 

HELLENISTS.  Greek-speaking Jews referred to in Acts 6 and 9, and contras-

        ted with the “Hebrews.  The tension between the two groups intensified the 

        problem of the admission of Gentiles to the church.  Foreign-born Jews in

        Jerusalem spoke various languages, including Greek.  It was probably 

        these “foreigners” or Greek-speaking Jews who were designated by the 

        term “Hellenists,” rather than Gentiles. 

HELMET (כובע ( ko bah); perikefalaia (peh rie keh fa lay ee ah)  A defen-

        sive headgear worn in battle, ordinarily made of leather for ordinary sol-

        diers, but of bronze for royalty and heroes.  In symbolic usage, the Lord 

        is pictured wearing the helmet of salvation, which is also part of a Chris-

        tian’s “armor.”

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HELON (הלון, strength) A Zebulunite; the father of Eliah (Numbers 1, 2, 7, 10). 

HELPERS  ( antilhmyeiV (an ti lem psay ees))  One of the charismata or “gifts

        of the Spirit,” named by Paul. It is not a ministerial order, but rather a gift 

        possessed by deacons of the church. The verb form appears as a syno-

        nym of Martha’s service.  

HEM  (שול (shole), skirt; kraspedon (kras peh don), fringe) The King James 

        Version translation of shol and kraspedon (See Skirt and Fringe entries). 

HEMAM (הימם, defeat) The clan chief, Lotan’s second son, and a Horite sub-

        clan’s ancestor in Edom. 

HEMAN  (הימן, faithful)   1.  A Horite (Genesis 36).      2.  A “wise man” of the 

        “sons of Mahol,” part of a guild of dancers in Solomon’s time.  He is 

        called a son of Zerah, and is probably the same as Heman #3. 
              3.  A Kohathite, son of Joel; one of the leaders of the temple musi-

        cians under David and Solomon.  Perhaps the guild of Heman was origi-

        nally a guild of cultic prophets, which later became a musical guild. 

HEMDAN  (המדן, pleasant) The first son of clan chief Dishon; ancestor of 

        a native Horite sub clan in Edom. 

HEMLOCK (לענה (lah an aw), wormwood )  The King James Version 

        translation of the Hebrew word. 

HEMORRHAGE (pusiV  (poo sees))  Any bleeding or flow of blood.  In the 

        Old Testament hemorrhage brought with it ceremonial defilement, thus im-

        posing serious restrictions upon the individual‘s religious & social life.  

        The woman with hemorrhage ( Matthew 23; Mark 5; Luke 8) probably had 

        a uterine cyst.  

HEN (PERSON)  (הן, grace)  It is probable, however, that the original reading 

        was “Josiah.” 

HEN  (orniV (or nis), bird, fowl)  The female of the domestic fowl and of vari-

        ous other birds. 

HENA  (הנע)  A town mentioned in II Kings 18, 19; Isaiah 37.  Its location is not

        known. Hezekiah had begun an anti-Assyrian policy.  The Assyrian envoys 

        stated that Hezekiah would have no success and cited Hena among other 

        cities as an example of cities that had failed in their resistance of Assyria. 

HENADAD  (הנדד, perhaps favor of Hadad (weather god))  The ancestor and 

        origin of the name for a Levitical house of priests mentioned in connection

        with the building of the temple under Zerubbabel, the repair of the Jerusa-

        lem wall, and the signing of Ezra’s covenant. 

HENNA  (כפר (ko pher))  A fragrant flowering shrub or tree.  In the Song of 

        Solomon 1 the lover is likened to the fragrant cluster of henna blossoms.  

        In the same book, chapter 4, the tree is listed with other fragrant spices in a

        metaphor in praise of the bride. 

HEPHER (הפר, pit, well)   1. Ancestor and origin of the name for a clan of the 

        Manasseh or Gilead tribe.     2.  A man or family of the Judah tribe. (I 

        Chron. 4).      3.  One of David’s Mighty Men (I Chron. 11).      4.  A Canaa-

        nite city whose king was defeated by Joshua and which is found in the lis-

        ting of Solomon’s administrative districts.  Hepher’s exact location is un-

        known; a site 3.2 km east of Arubboth, & Tell Ibshar have been suggested. 

HEPHZIBAH  (הפצי־בה, my delight is in her)    1.  The wife of King 

        Hezekiah, and the mother of Manasseh (II King 21).      2. symbolic name 

        for the restored Jerusalem, when God’s “delight” will again be in her.

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HERALD (khrux, (keh ruz), preacher)   An officer making state or royal pro-  

        clamations public, or bearing ceremonial messages between princes and 

        powers.  In Daniel 3 it is used as “herald”’ in the New Testament it is used 

        metaphorically for the “preacher.”  The metaphor suggests the preacher is 

        a herald in that he bears a message or proclamation given him by the hea-

        venly King.

HERB  (ארה (‘aw raw), to gather; Lacanon (lak an on))  In II Kings 4, it 

        is more likely that a cereal or grain is meant.  Lachanon  is a cultivated, as 

        opposed to a wild plant. 

HERDSMAN  (רעה (raw aw); בוקר (bo kare), cattle-tender)  A keeper of 

        domestic animals that go in herds. Ra’ah is more often translated as “shep-

        herd.”  Amos’ claim to be a boqar is interpreted as evidence of his lay ori-

        gin.  However, recent study by some suggests that it may be an official 

        priestly title.  

HERES, ASCENT OF (מעלה החרס (mah ‘ah leh  ha khah res), ascent of the 

        sun)  A place where Gideon turned back from pursuing the Midianites.  

        The translation is doubtful, but there is no agreement on an alternative. 

HERESH (הרש, mute) A Levite listed among the returned exiles. The name is 

        not in the parallel Nehemiah 11. 

HERESY (h airhsiV (hah ee res is), sect, faction)  Originally, a school, sect, 

        faction; later, the opposite of orthodoxy.  The term “heresy” meant a philo-

        sophical school with its special doctrine.  The New Testament language is 

        influenced by Greek and Jewish terminology.  The new Christian usage of 

        the term, with reference to inner-Christian factions began with the Church.

        The Greek term was used in a bad sense, yet without the technical mea-

        ning of “schism,” which meant a dogmatic and organizational break.  

        Heresies were to be expected before the end time, while the possibility of 

        schisms were to be rejected. 

HERETH  (הרת, to cut)  A forest between Adullam and Giloh, about 10.4 km 

        east of Beit Jibrin, in which David hid after his sojourn in Moab. 

HERITAGE.  There is no clear distinction between the terms “inheritance” and 

        “heritage.”  In the Revised Standard Version, heritage is used for spiritual 

        things, inheritance is used for spiritual things. 

                  Land and territory were believed to come into possession of Hebrew 

        families by heritage.  They were theirs by divine gift, not by conquest, and 

        were passed on by inheritance.  Spiritual qualities, relationships with God, 

        and prosperity were accepted as part of the heritage. 

HERMOGENES  ( ErmogenhV, born of Hermes) Someone mentioned with

        Phygelus as having deserted Paul. 

HERMON, MOUNT  (הרמון, from the root meaning destruction)  The moun-

        tain which forms the southern spur of the Anti-Lebanon Range. Mount Her-

        mon reaches a height of about 2,700 meters, and its crown is seen from 

        many places in Palestine.  The impressive view of Mount Hermon has 

        always fascinated people, and it has long been a sacred mountain.  Mount 

        Hermon was used as a cult place also in later periods. 

HEROD (FAMILY) (הורדוס, from the root meaning descent)  The dynasty 

        which under Rome ruled Jewish Palestine from 37 B.C.-70 A.D. (See also 

        the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha / Influences Outside the Bible 

        section of the Appendix.).

              Assuming that Jesus was born in 6 B.C., he was born towards the 

        end of Herod the Great’s rule.  Herod’s grandson was poisoned by his 

        remaining uncle; that uncle, Antipater, was the last of many executed by 

        Herod, only 5 days before Herod himself died in 4 B.C.  The usurpation 

        of the throne by Herod and the many murders throughout his reign can't 

        be condoned.  But, when taken in context with the common practice of 

        the royalty of his time, it must be said that his behavior mirrored that 

        found in Rome itself.  The greatest condemnation of Herod would have 

        to be that he was as bad as all those around him who sought the power of

        a throne.  Josephus’ account shows that Herod felt only indifference and 

        unconcern for Jewish law and ethics.  
              Certainly his unadmirable career discloses qualities which, if ad-

        dressed to worthy purposes, would have appeared admirable.  His rise to 

        power took place at a time of civil war and of internal upheavals.  Out of 

        this chaos, he carved a relatively tranquil kingdom in his segment of the 

        Roman Empire.  And within that kingdom that he paid so dearly for, he 

        established a high degree of order and peace in the midst of chaos.

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              Archelaus was aware of the Jews’ broad hostility to his family.  

        He placated his own countrymen through kindliness and forbearance and

        by the gesture of deferring his ascension to the throne until the kingship 

        willed to him by his father could be confirmed by Rome.  His intentions 

        were frustrated first by a revolt in 4 B.C., and second by his brother 

        Antipas, who contested his right to the throne. He went to Rome to plead

        his case, but before a decision could be rendered, a third Jewish deputa-

        tion was in Rome to plead for autonomy. 
              Augustus’ decision divided the kingdom into halves.  He named 

        Archelaus ethnarch, rather than king, of Judea, Idumea, and Samaria.  In 

        the other half, Antipas became the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, & Philip

        the tetrarch of several small northeastern regions. The brutal treatment by

        Archelaus of Jews and Samaritans caused people to go to Rome to de-

        nounce him to Augustus.  Archelaus was banished to France in 6 A.D. 
             The tetrarchy of Herod Philip, Herod and Cleopatra’s son, inclu-

        ded Batanea,  Trachonitis, and nearby districts northeast of the Sea of 

        Galilee.  The only description we have of his reign is one from Josephus, 

        namely that it was one of tranquility and prosperity.  There is some con-

        fusion as to who Philip’s wife was.  It is most likely that Mark 6 is in 

        error in speaking of Herodias as the wife of Philip.  Philip’s wife was 

        Herodias’ daughter, Salome, who dance for Herod right before the behea-

        ding of John the Baptist. When Philip died without issue in 34, his tetrar-

        chy was for three years attached to Syria, but in 37 it was assigned to 

        Agrippa I.  

                   Herod Antipas was a younger brother of Archelaus, son of Herod 

        and Malthace.  He was named tetrarch of Galilee and Perea.  He founded 

        the city of Tiberias by the Sea of Galilee.  Antipas met Herodias, the wife

        of Herod II, and wanted her.  Antipas divorced the daughter of the Naba-

        tean king and married Herodias.  John the Baptist was put to death, either

         because of fear of rebellion, or John’s criticism of Antipas’ marriage to 

        Herodias.  

                   War broke out in 36 between Antipas and Aretas, king of Nabatea;

        Antipas’ army was destroyed.  Agrippa, the brother of Herodias, was 

        given the territory previously held by the tetrarch Philip, & received the 

        title of king in 37.  Antipas went to Rome seeking a more royal title, but

        due to some damning charges by Agrippa, Antipas was banished to Lyons 

        in France in 39.  

                   Agrippa, son of Herod the Great’s son Aristobulus, had been in 

        Rome since he was 6 years old.  In 23 or 29 A.D. financial need brought 

        him to Palestine.  After several failed attempts at employment, he man-

        aged to borrow money in Alexandria and returned to Rome.  There he 

        succeeded in becoming a protégé of Caligula.  When indiscreetly he ex-

        pressed openly the wish that Caligula would soon succeed Tiberius, the 

        latter cast Agrippa into jail.  After Caligula acceded to the throne, he gran-

        ted to Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip.

                   On arriving in Palestine Agrippa incurred the jealousy of Herod 

        Antipas; thereafter Antipas lost his tetrarchy, which came to be added to 

        Agrippa’s possession.  Agrippa was helpful in the ascent of Claudius to 

        the Roman throne, and gained more territory as a result.  From 41-44 

        Agrippa as king ruled over virtually the same land that Herod the Great 

        ruled over.  He died at the age of 54, survived by three daughters and a 17

        year-old son named Agrippa.  Until he was old enough, the kingdom was 

        reduced to a province. 

                   At the age of 23, Agrippa II succeeded an uncle and brother-in-law,

        Herod, to the throne in Chalcis.  A little later Nero added to his territory 

        portions of Galilee & Perea; thereby Agrippa was king over part of Judea.

        Little is related about Agrippa II in subsequent times, and this little is most 

        unfavorable.  When the rebellion against Rome broke out in 66, Agrippa’s

        troops participated in the assault on Jerusalem by Cestius Gallus.  The 

        emperor Galba was murdered before Agrippa reached Rome; Vespasian 

        was now elected emperor. At the end of the war, in 70, Agrippa had addi-

        tional territories added to his possessions.  He and Bernice moved to 

        Rome around 75.  There Bernice was the mistress of Titus.  The end of 

        the Herodian dynasty came to an end with his death in 100. 

                   Herod’s Family in the New Testament (NT)—Virtually all that is

        told in the NT about the members of the family of Herod is either missing

        or different from what Josephus reports.  What follows is a comparison 

        between the NT and Josephus material on the Herod family: 

                    1.  Acts 12 relates that Agrippa [I] persecuted the church, slay-

            ing James the son of Zebedee and arresting Peter, who was re-

            leased from jail by angels.  Agrippa, angry with the people of Tyre 

            and Sidon responded with a speech.  “An angel of the Lord smote 

            him, . . . he was eaten by worms and died.”  

                    In Josephus’ Antiquities, he relates that Agrippa, on seeing an 

            owl, was seized with abdominal pains, taken to his palace, and died

            there five days later.

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                    2.  After Paul has appealed to Caesar, it is related that when 

            Agrippa [II] & Bernice arrived at Caesarea, Festus laid Paul’s case 

            before the king (Acts 25).  Agrippa gave Paul permission to speak. 

            Agrippa and Festus agreed that Paul had done nothing to deserve 

            death or imprisonment.  

                   Not one word of the narrative is found in Josephus.  

                   3.  The passages in Mark 6, Matthew 14, and Luke 3 relate the

            circumstances of the death of John the Baptist.  Mark calls Antipas 

            “king”; Luke correctly designates him tetrarch.  The name Antipas 

            does not appear in the NT.  The NT  knows nothing of the “seven 

            veils” in which legend dressed Salome.  In Luke 13, the Pharisees 

            told Jesus that Herod wanted to kill him.  In a third passage, found 

            only in Luke 23, Pilate, learning that Jesus was a Galilean, brought

            him to Antipas.  Jesus answered none of Antipas’ questions.  Herod

            and his soldiers mocked him and sent him back to Pilate.  The ab-

            sence of a comparable passage in Mark, Matthew, and John sug-

            gests strongly that this passage is legendary. 

                   The account in Josephus of John’s death is bare.  The “seven 

            veils” of Salome in Josephus is probably an embellishment.  There

            is no mention of Herod’s intent to kill Jesus, or of Jesus’ appea-

            rance before him. 

                   4.  Only Matthew mentions Archelaus.  

                    Josephus’ account of Archelaus can be found in the fourth 

            paragraph of this article.  

                   5.  Paul in Romans 16 sends greetings to the family of Aristo-

            bulus.”  The conjecture that this Aristobulus is Herod the Great's 

            grandson is farfetched. 

                    6.  Drusilla is mentioned in passing (Acts 24) as one of Felix’s

            three wives, and as the third and youngest daughter of Agrippa I.  

            In 53 or 54 she married the Roman procurator of Palestine, Felix. 

                    7.  Bernice, the sister of Agrippa II is mentioned in Acts 25.  

            No mention is made of this incident in Josephus’ accounts.  

                    8.  While not a Herodian, Felix was married to a Herodian 

            (Acts 23).  

                    For Josephus’ account of Felix, see Biblical entry on Felix, 

            paragraph 2.  

                    9.  Luke 1 states that the events described in the gospel began

            “in the days of Herod [the Great].”  

                   Mat. 2 states that “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in 

            the days of Herod the King.”  The 3 Wise Men and the “slaughter 

            of the innocents” is a part of Matthew’s account.  Those who have 

            assessed this material have expressed a range of judgment from 

            full confidence through full skepticism.  The price of skepticism as

            to the reliability of ascribing Jesus' birth to the last year Herod the 

            Great’s reign is that the precise year of his birth becomes quite 

            unknown. It is, however, the price which strict historical study 

            demands.  

                   All the above NT material is absent from Josephus. 

                   10.  For the Herodians see separate Biblical entry.  

                   11.  Herodias is mention in Mark 6 as first the wife of Herod 

            Philip. She was the second wife of Herod Antipas, and he was her 

            second husband.  She had a hand in the death of John the Baptist.  

                    Actually, Herodias’ first husband was most likely Herod II, 

            not Herod Philip. 

                   12.  Philip is mentioned in Luke 3 in order to fix the chrono-

            logy of John the Baptist.  Luke describes his tetrarchy as Ituraea 

            and Trachonitis.  Philip plays no role in the gospel.  He was the 

            son of Herod the Great and of Cleopatra of Jerusalem.  The city of

            Caesarea Philippi was founded by him.  Philip married Salome, 

            the daughter of Herodia. 

                   13.  Salome was the daughter of Herodias; we get the name 

            from the historian Josephus, the daughter in Matthew 14, Mark 6, 

            and Luke 3 is unnamed.  Salome danced before her stepfather, 

            Herod Antipas on his birthday.  She asked for and received John 

            the Baptist’s head on a platter.

                   Josephus is silent on the above incident. Modern, liberal scho-

            larship regards it as legendary.  On the assumption of a historically

            reliable account, the problem of the age of Salome at the time of 

            the incident is frequently raised.  It is argued by some that Salome

            could scarcely have been a young maiden at the time she danced, 

            since her husband-to-be was 50; if Salome danced at all, she must 

            have been 45 or 50.  

                    The best judgment of the gospels is that they are religious tracts 

        rather than historical research; the material they include about the Herod

        family is clearly legendary.  It is used primarily to set chronology and to 

        relate Christianity to its Jewish background.  The NT material on Herod’s

        family adds virtually nothing to the knowledge of them.  It increases the 

        perplexities rather than illuminating dark places. 

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HERODIANS (’Herwdianoi (hare od ee ah noy)) Literally adherents of Herod     or as one scholar put it: those among the Jews who . . . Desired the resto-

        ration of the national kingdom under the sons of Herod.” In 3 passages 

        (Mark 3 and 12; Matthew 22), the Herodians are mentioned as opponents 

        of Jesus, along with the Pharisees; the Herodians are not mentioned in 

        Luke or John. 

                    The problems we face are: a more specific identification of the “He-

        rodians” than just a Herod or their dynasty; an answer to why Luke avoids 

        the term altogether; and making the Herodians synonymous with the 

        Sadduccees.  More specific identification of the “Herodians” from the 3 

        passages is impossible because of their vagueness.  If some specific 

        identification must be made, the best is that they are followers of Herod

        Antipas.  

                   The avoidance of the term by Luke may be a deliberate attempt 

        by Mark, whom Luke uses, to avoid the more far-fetched assumptions.  

        Finally there is nothing in Matthew which actually identifies the Herodians 

        with the Sadducees, for Matthew 16 merely substitutes the Sadducees 

        for the Herodians of Mark 8.  There's no direct statement in the gospels 

        which equates Herodians and Sadducees.

HERODIAS  ( ‘HrodiaV )  A wife of Herod Antipas and the daughter of Aristo-

        bulus and Bernice; granddaughter of Herod the Great.  Herodias’ exact 

        dates are unknown beyond placing her between 1-50 A.D.
              Herodias was first married to one of her uncles.  Mark 6 and Mat- 

        thew 14 identify him as Philip.  From historical data outside of the Bible, 

        it is more like the uncle’s name is Herod.  Herod Antipas was a half bro-

        ther of the first husband of Herodias.  Antipas had divorced his first wife,

        a Nabatean princess, to make room for Herodias.  John the Baptist de-

        nounced this marital irregularity.  After Salome’s dance and demand John

        was beheaded. According to the historian Josephus, Herodias prevailed 

        upon the reluctant Antipas to go to Rome to petition Caligula to make him

        king.  Instead, the emperor banished Antipas to Lyons, and Herodias ac-

        companied him there.

HERODION (‘Hrwdiwn)  A Christian man greeted in Romans 16 by Paul, who 

        called him a fellow countryman. 

HERODIUM (‘Hrwdeion (hare od ay ee on))  A fortress palace and tomb 

        monument some 6 km southeast of Bethlehem.  The ruins of the Herodian

        citadel are still visible. 
              Herodium was both a desert retreat & part of a chain of fortresses 

        Herod erected to protect his kingdom.  After 40 B.C., when he was attacked

        by hostile Jews nearby, he erected a fortress called Herodium on the Idu-

        mean frontier, & the luxurious palace by the same name near Bethlehem.  

        Herod artificially raised and crowned the hill with a ring of three concentric

        walls with round towers at the four cardinal directions.  A grand stairway of

        200 white marble steps mounted to the citadel; an expensive aqueduct 

        was built to provide water.  Under Roman administration Herodium was

        the capital of one of 11 toparchies.  As one of the three last stronghold of 

        Jewish resistance, Herodium was reduced by Lucilius Bassus in 72 A.D. 

HERON  (אנפה (an aw faw), unclean bird)  Any of a family of wading birds 

        with a long thin neck and long legs, whose haunt is water, and whose food 

        is fish and other water animals.  In the 1800s, Tristam found 7 varieties

        of heron common in the lake regions of Palestine in his day.  

HESHBON  (השבון, an accounting or understanding) An important city in the 

        northern part of Greater Moab, the city of Sihon, king of the Amorites, 

        about 80 km due east of Jerusalem.  The city about it was bitterly contes-

        ted between Moab and Israel; it was conquered by Eglon of Moab & won 

        back by Israel in the time of the judges. The territory then remained perma-

        nently Israelite until after Ahab's death.  From that time on, it remained in 

        Moabite hands.  Around 600 B.C., Heshbon seems to have fallen into the 

        hands of the Ammonites.  In the period of Greek influences, it was part of 

        the Nabatean kingdom.  After the fall of the Jewish state, Heshbon was an-

        nexed to the Roman province of Syria. 

HESHMON (השמון, rich soil) A town in southwestern part of Judah; it may be 

        the source of the word “Hasmonean,” another label for the Maccabee 

        family. 

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HETH (הת, terror) An ancestor and originator of the name for the Hittites; it 

        appears in the story of the acquisition of the cave of Machpelah by 

        Abraham. 

HETHLON (התלן, covered place)  A place on the hypothetical northern border

        of Israel (Ezekiel 47).

HEWERS OF WOOD (עצים חטבי (khaw ta by ‘ates eem)) One of the lowest 

        classes of Servant. These workers are to be distinguished from those who 

        felled trees for building purposes. These are really gatherers of fire-wood, 

        listed last among covenanting people.

HEXATEUCH.  The modern scholarly designation of the first 6 books of the

        Bible.  It had been apparent to scholars for a long time that the Pentateuch,

        traditionally understood to be the work of Moses, was not only a composite

        of different strands, but the truncated section of a more extensive composi-

        tion.  It must have included the book of Joshua, if there was to be a suitable

        conclusion to the story of Israel’s beginning.

                  The Promised Land theme demands the fulfillment related in the 

        conquest & settlement found in Joshua.  Source analysis located the fami-

        liar Pentateuchal sources in that book.  The composite narrative was as-

        signed to the combination of Jahwist and Elohwist, while the boundary lists 

        and other technical data were apparently the work of the Priestly writer.  

        The whole book bore the unmistakable stamp of Deuteronomic redaction.  

        It was generally agreed that the Priestly Writer was present in Joshua but 

        did not extend beyond it. 

                   In recent scholarship, the Hexateuchal reconstruction has come un-

        der suspicion.  It is clear that the Hexateuch and the Deuternomic history 

        represent overlapping and conflicting reconstructions.  In the larger biblical

        narrative, Joshua is in the middle, with strong connections in both direc-

        tions.  The claims made for the integrity of the Deuteronomic history have 

        more evidence to commend them than those of the Hexateuch. 

                   It may be best to postulate the existence of two major and slightly 

        overlapping works covering the books from Genesis through Kings:  the 

        combined Jahwist, Elohwist, and Priestly history, plus an account of the 

        conquest and settlement in the Promised Land; and the Deuteronomic his-

        tory beginning with Moses’ farewell speeches and coming down to the fall 

        of Judah and the Exile.  The editor who combined these two strands either 

        removed the last part of the Jahwist, Elohwist, and Priestly account or blen-

        ded it into the present book of Joshua.  The term “Hexateuch” has proved 

        useful in the history of criticism, but it is doubtful whether the literary com-

        position it designated ever existed as an independent entity. 

HEZEKIAH  (הזקיה, strength of the Lord)  1.  King of Judah (715-687 B.C.); 

        son and successor of Ahaz. 

                   Hezekiah came to the throne at the age of 25 and reigned 29 years. 

        Hezekiah was remembered by later generations as an able and vigorous 

        ruler and a pious king.  He came to the throne at a critical time.  Israel had

        fallen in 722-721 B.C. into the hands of Sargon II, Judah had been seri-

        ously weakened by the Syro-Ephraimitic War and by the Edomites and

        Philistines.  The annual tribute to Assyria was an intolerable burden upon 

        her resources.  Further, religious conditions under Ahaz had become chao-

        tic.  People were beginning to see that only the power of Yahweh could 

        save them from the might of Assyria. 

                   Unquestionably, a religious reform took place.  The disastrous fall 

        of Israel to the north was powerfully used by the contemporary prophets 

        Isaiah and Micah to point to the moral of a return to the worship of Yah-

        weh.  It may be contended that Hezekiah’s interests were largely political, 

        but the distinction between religious enthusiasm and patriotism was not 

        always easy to see in ancient Israel.  Hezekiah removed the high places, 

        broke down the pillars, and cut down the Asherah.  These & other reforms

        would not have the support of all the people, and the inevitable reaction 

        came during the reign of Hezekiah’s son Manasseh.  
              The Chronicler has a long account of the religious reformation in II

        Chronicles 29-31.  The restoration of the temple was followed by a great 

        celebration of the Passover.  Then the whole land, including the northern 

        territories of Ephraim and Manasseh was cleansed of idolatry.  What took 

        3 chapters to describe in II Chronicles, is given only one verse in II Kings 

        18.  
             The tendency has been to disregard in large measure the account of

   is based on reliable traditions.  Isaiah makes no specific reference to any 

        the Chronicler.  Such a judgment, however, is unwarranted, as his material

        reformation during his time, perhaps because he saw that the real motive 

        was not a religious one, and because the religious reform was successful 

        only in part.  

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              There is also no reason to doubt that Hezekiah’s messengers met 

        with little success in Ephraim and Manasseh, but had limited success in 

        Asher and Zebulun farther to the north.  The Assyrians probably saw the 

        importance of having a place of worship to rival the official place in Jeru-

        salem. That the sending of messengers had political implications is certain.
              Hezekiah’s other concern was to strengthen Judah politically.  He 

        began to strengthen the defenses of Jerusalem. He cut through the solid 

        rock in order to bring the water of the Gihon spring into the city.  Sargon 

        records a victorious campaign against Aziru, Ashdod's king, but apparently

        Hezekiah did not join in this rebellion in 711.  Six years later Sargon died, 

        & widespread intrigue began.  In all probability Hezekiah intrigued openly

        both with Merodach-baladan of Babylon & the Ethopian Pharaoh Shabako

        against Assyria; he withheld his tribute. Hezekiah also saw an opportunity 

        to retaliate against the Philistines.  

                   After settling affairs in his eastern kingdom, Sennacherib turned to 

        the west.  In 701 Sennacherib invaded Palestine and in an extensive cam-

        paign put down the rebellion.  A large Egyptian and Ethiopian army had 

        marched to relieve Ekron, but it was defeated.  Then Sennacherib turned 

        against the fortified cities of Judah, such as Lachish and Debir.  While the 

        siege of Lachish was still in progress, Hezekiah, seeing that further resis-

        tance was useless, sent a message to Sennacherib offering to surrender &

        promising to pay whatever tribute was imposed upon him.  Hezekiah took 

        all the silver from the temple and the royal treasuries, and “stripped the 

        gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord.  
              II Kings 18-19 raises many difficult problems, as it contains a 

        second list of demands from Sennacherib.  Also, the siege of Libnah was 

        interrupted by news of an approaching Egyptian army under Tirhakah, but

        Tirhakah did not become king until 689 B.C., 12 years after the original 

        story.  From the evidence available to us it is not possible to reconstruct 

        the history of subsequent events.  It seems preferable to adopt the hypo-

        thesis that the existing story is made up of 2 campaigns, the second of 

        which took place between 689-686 and was made memorable by a plague

        which decimated the Assyrian army. 
              2.  An ancestor of the prophet Zephaniah (Zephaniah 1).     3.  Son 

        of Neariah, descendant of the royal family of Judah (I Chronicles 3).      

        4.  Head of a family whose descendants returned with Nehemiah from 

        Babylonian exile. (Nehemiah 7). 

HEZION  (הזיון, vision)  Grandfather of Ben-hadad I of Syria (I Kings 15)  

HEZIR (הזיר, swine, boar)  1.  A descendant of Aaron; the ancestor and origin 

        of the name of a priestly house in King David’s time.  2.  One of the 

        chiefs of the people who sign the covenant of Ezra (Nehemiah 10). 

HEZRO  (הצרו, protected)  A Carmelite who is numbered among David’s Thirty 

        mighty men.  (I Samuel 23).

HEZRON (הצרון, enclosed, protected)  1.  The ancestor and origin of the 

        name for a clan of the tribe of Reuben.     2. The ancestor & origin of the 

        name of a clan of the tribe of Judah.  The name is included in both of the 

        New Testament genealogies (Genesis 46; Numbers 26; I Chronicles 2; 

        Matthew 1; Luke 3).      3.  A city on the southern border of Canaan, be-

        tween Kadesh-barnea and Addar.

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