Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Ian wrote:

>Are you suggesting that there was another building
>next to the tabernacle in which resided the ark that
>Eli was sat outside in 1Samuel 1:9?

Nope. I'm suggesting that the word hekal normally refers to a fixed building. 
I'm not suggesting anything about the architecture of Shiloh.
>
>This seems to be the impression you're giving.
>Although the weight of contextual evidence seems to
>suggest that the "heykal" in question was the
>tabernacle.

Does the context suggest that it was the tabernacle or that it was what we 
expect the tabernacle to be? I think those are two different things.
>
>Since we don't seem to disagree that 'heykal' means
>temple or palace, why cannot the tabernacle fall into
>this catagory?
>A. It's not an ordinary tent, the description given of
>the tabernacle would make it a royal residence or
>temple for any nomadic/tent dwelling people.

Was this a nomadic/tent dwelling people?

>B. It's a royal residence in as much as it is the
>'dwelling place' of the King of the Universe.

Is that all it has to be to be called a hekal?

>C. It is adorned with purple and costly fabrics, cedar
>wood and gold, surely a palace.
>D. It is the spiritual centre of the people of Israel,
>surely a temple.

For one thing, I think we need to be careful about how much we read of our 
own 
vocabulary into that of the Hebrew Bible. It's all well and good to talk 
about 
temples and palaces, but what we're really trying to do is put into English 
the concepts that are associated with words that we find. Yes, hekal seems to 
be rendered best in English as "palace" or "temple," but that doesn't mean 
that we can then assume that whatever can be attached to those English terms 
can also be attached to hekal. I'm not saying that it can't be a movable 
structure; I'm just wondering how we know that it can. Maybe it is being used 
that way in this passage, but maybe it's not. Are there places in the Hebrew 
Bible where we have unusual uses of words? Of course. Does it help our case 
at 
all to find other instances in Hebrew or find cognates in other languages 
used 
the same way? Quite a bit. My concern is that it seems like both you and 
George are making assertions about the basic sense of this word that don't 
come from anywhere except the need to account for this verse. Sometimes it's 
necessary to do that sort of thing, but I'd personally be more comfortable 
ruling out all the other possibilities first.
>
>The only objection seems to be that it is not a fixed
>structure made of stone or brick.
>
>The Akkadian E-gal as far as I understand it means
>great house, not stone building.

Actually, that's Sumerian; and etymologically, that is what it means. But as 
the term made its rounds through the various Semitic languages, I'm 
interested 
in what happens with the usage. If (and I'm not saying this is so, because I 
haven't personally examined all the uses) E2.GAL in Sumerian always referred 
to a fixed structure, and if ekallum in Akkadian always referred to a fixed 
structure, and if the cognates in Ethiopic, Aramaic, Arabic, or Hebrew always 
referred to a fixed structure, it at least gives us something to think about 
in terms of the term carrying that association.
>
[snipped]

>Are you suggesting
>that this was another temple that had been constructed
>for the ark that had escaped comment in the entire
>cannon of the old testament, and not the tabernacle?

No. This is essentially the same question that you asked above, but I feel 
it's important to re-emphasize that I'm not trying to put forth an 
explanation 
for why the term is used. I'm simply asking whether we can legitimately 
consider that the term used here might have to refer to a temple in the same 
way that it does elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. What the author of Samuel 
would be saying by referring to it here is another issue in my mind, and one 
that perhaps should wait for a better understanding of the term in question. 
I'm not saying I have that better understanding. I'm just trying to guard 
against jumping to a redefinition of terms that is convenient exegetically 
but 
lacks philological evidence.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics