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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] )BYMLK vs. Abimelech vs. Abi-Molech

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  • From: Gabe Eisenstein <gabe AT cascadeaccess.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] )BYMLK vs. Abimelech vs. Abi-Molech
  • Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:43:28 -0700

I'm not engaging the main argument here, but it made me curious... Is it possible to read Abimelech simply as "(my) father king", a title more than a proper name? What I'm thinking is that the "me" in "my father" is the person addressing the king, not the king's name. So it would be like "your majesty" or "my lord".

(While this is possibility might seem strange to those who regard the text as a chronicle, it wouldn't seem so to those who read the text as legend or outright fiction.)

Regarding Molech, my study has inclined me to the view that the word really just means king, used as an appellation for a deity; but that there was a special usage (whether or not it involved an alternate vowel pattern), usually involving the preposition (LMLK), that referred specifically to a type of ritual involving passing through or over fire, and symbolic sacrifice (the Talmud and Assyrian sources tell us that the sacrifice didn't involve real killing, but maybe on some rare occasions it did). Since the ritual is found in widely disparate settings, I don't think you can tie MLK to any specific location, even if it is being used in a way (i.e., as an implicit deity-name) that is analogous to the way MLK is used in "(passing through fire) to king (Adad)".
(On the other hand, the god "Adramelech" -- probably a resh-daleth mistranscription for Adad-melech -- is said in 2Kings 17 to come from Sepharvaim in Mesopotamia.)


Gabe Eisenstein




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