Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

I can see a lot of fascinating ideas to explore around this theme, 
though some go rather far from b-hebrew. Yes, clearly in Deu 7:25 as 
in the Achan incident XEREM is something to be avoided, even something 
unclean and detestable, if used in any way other than what YHWH has 
decided. So the idea is here more similar to the Arabic one. I wonder 
if the idea here is that the item or land is really YHWH's but has 
been misused for idolatrous purposes; of course YHWH can only accept 
back his own if it is first purged utterly of evil e.g. by being 
burned or completely devastated. There may be a link to the 
destruction of the earth by fire in Isaiah 24 and to the fallow period 
for the land to "enjoy its sabbaths" in Leviticus 26. And I wonder if 
later commentators, whether Jewish or Christian, have semi-consciously 
interpreted the end of Malachi in the light of the destruction of 
Jerusalem in 70 CE or perhaps in other periods. As a result I am not 
very happy with the translation "curse" in Malachi, perhaps better 
would be something like "devastation".

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[3]: End of Malachi:  Kherem.
Author:  <lewreich AT javanet.com> at Internet
Date:    21/02/2000 21:45


On 21 Feb 00, at 22:26, Peter Kirk wrote:

> 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.

I agree, but what do you think of Deut. 7:25, where it's talking about 
something more odious than forbidden food, viz., idols, herem is
used?  The idols aren't to be regarded as holy, in fact the word 
to'evah is used.

Lewis Reich

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