Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>]

Dora,

Yes, this would definitely be the Septuagint, not the Tanakh. :-)

On 12/15/04 9:38 PM, "Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com> wrote:
> OK, it is specifically supposedly used in Solomon 16:13, Job 17:16, Isaiah
> 38:10, and Ps 9:13, 69:15.

My quick search for "ekklesia" in the Septuagint (using Accordance) yielded
100 hits in 96 verses. It's all over the place in there. It seems to be just
the normal usage of "ekklesia," that is, "assembly, gathering." Any more
specific nuance has to be provided by the context or by additional
terminology, such as "ekklesia tes apoikias" "the assembly of the exiles"
(Ezra 10:8) or "ekklesia kuriou" "the assembly of the Lord," etc.

I didn't check every single case, but "ekklesia" appears to be the normal
Septuagint translation for Hebrew QAHAL, "assembly, gathering."

As for the verses you mentioned ... Well, I don't see "ekklesia" in any of
them in my digital LXX. Perhaps your list is referencing something else?

In any event, lexically, Heb. QAHAL has roughly the same semantic range as
Greek ekklesia; both denote some sort of gathering. What sort of gathering
has to be, er, gathered from the context.

Chris
-- 
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Armstrong Fellow in Religion
Pepperdine University
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info