Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Ian wrote:

>I wouldn't expect my house to be a castle, but the
>expression still stands, 'my home is my castle'.

A couple of things.  First, this sort of construction (one thing "is" 
another) 
is ideal for clear, metaphorical statement.  It is used to say that something 
is something, which is quite different from simply assuming that something is 
something and calling it that in passing.  Second, the second "my" is 
important to the expression.  By putting it that way, you don't literally 
think that it's a castle--only that it's a castle to you.

[snipped]
>
>"Then would you also say that the shift in use from
>bet to hekal over time (as hekal becomes more common
>in later Bib. Heb.) reflects a shift in thinking
>about God's royal role?"
>
>Not really. It may reflect the preference of the
>author for the term.

But you're saying that the point of using the term is to stress the 
tabernacle 
as God's royal residence.  Since the author doesn't seem to be making a point 
of that fact, it seems like it should be a matter of general perspective.  
But 
if that's not also why the term becomes so much more common in later biblical 
literature, it seems like maybe this case is being viewed too 
idiosyncratically.

[snipped]
>
>Driver and Briggs are both Wellhausians, so I wouldn't
>expect them to want to find a semitic root, that
>doesn't mean that there isn't one, just that we don't
>know of one. Perhaps they're right, point is we don't
>know.

There are a lot of things that we don't know, many of them in this discussion.
 But if we're talking about evidence, it seems hard to me to contest the 
notion that E.GAL is originally Sumerian.  Please let me know when you've 
come 
up with its Semitic origins otherwise, but until then I'll stick with the 
most 
plausible explanation :-)
>
[snipped]

>Who says you have to stretch anything. Just because
>it's the first use of the word in this context doesn't
>mean they meant something else. Would the writer have
>clarified by adding something like,"sat on a seat near
>the post of the temple, the one near the tabernacle",
>if the tabernacle wasn't what was meant.

I hardly feel qualified to say what the author would have said.  I'm just 
trying to deal with what in fact was said and what seems to be plausibly 
attached to that term.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics