Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George Athas" <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

>[...] should be "let I smite the land with a ban, i.e.
> utterly destroy it." (p. 356)
>
> The sense is that Malachi is warning the people to turn to God when Elijah
> appears and warns them, or else He will destroy the land.

This would tie in with the Conquest tradition of Joshua where the people of 
the land were
put under sacred ban (xerem) for their sins, which had reached the fullest 
measure. The
threat implies that the people had become "Canaanites" (in the theological 
sense) in their
attitude and actions.

George Athas
 Dept of Semitic Studies,
 University of Sydney
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