Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>]

Peter wrote:

>In Persian "heykal" means "idol", and in Azerbaijani it means "statue". That
>doesn't help either. We need to decide what it meant in Hebrew.

Agreed.  My point is that the usage in every Semitic language of which I'm 
aware and in Sumerian (which seems hard to overcome as the source in 
Akkadian, 
at least, probably in the others as well) suggests a fundamental notion of 
large, fixed strucutres, usually either palace or temple.  Granted, there are 
developments away from that notion, but part of my objection to what had been 
said was regarding the notion that the earlier sense is more abstract or 
general.  The Hebrew usage seems pretty consistently tied to a fixed 
structure, and the other Semitic cognates fit the pattern.  I'm not trying to 
say that it necessarily proves anything--I'm just interested in what evidence 
might point the other way (aside from this one verse where we may not be 
happy 
with the implications).

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics