Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

This may be true, but I am concerned about your first example. The 
English "harem" is derived via Turkish from the Arabic "haram", which 
is also a Muslim religious concept. A colleague of mine recently did a 
comparative study of the Hebrew XEREM and the word "haram" as borrowed 
from Arabic into another language under Muslim influence. My colleague 
found some quite significant differences between the concepts, e.g. 
that the Arabic "haram" is to be rejected because it is unclean, 
whereas the Hebrew XEREM is to be destroyed because it is holy. So 
pork is "haram" (forbidden by religious laws) to the Muslim, but I 
don't think XEREM would ever be used of anything like pork in the 
Hebrew Bible. A harem of women were not devoted for destruction, but 
were so called (I suspect) because they were forbidden to any man but 
the sultan.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: End of Malachi:  Kherem.
Author:  <wross AT farmerstel.com> at Internet
Date:    21/02/2000 10:31


My understanding is that it literally means "devoted" and hence can apply 
to:

* a "harem" of women devoted to the sultan's good pleasures 
* prisoners of war devoted to destruction
* a people on an inviolable path to destruction (hence, cursed)

Bill Ross

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