Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible Online

I. Name In quite a number of biblical texts the pānîm of YHWH is YHWH’s hypostatic Presence. Thus it serves the same function as Šēm‘Name’ in Deuteronomistic theology, Kābôd‘Glory’ in the Priestly tradition, and Shekinah in later Jewish writings. By recourse to such concepts, the ancient Israelites were able to speak of the deity’s simultaneous transcendence and immanence. …

I. Name The basic meaning of the verbal root šqr, attested inter alia in Hebrew, Old Aramaic, Jewish Aramaic, and Syriac is: ‘to deceive, act perfidiously’, with corresponding nominal derivations (cf. HALAT s.v. šeqer), not ‘to lie’, as has been established by Klopfenstein (1964; cf. Klopfenstein 1976:1010). In combination with the word rûaḥ, ‘spirit’, šeqer can personify the notion of falsehood in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew qitl-nominal-formation šeqer ‘falsehood, deceit, perfidy’ is often used in regard to false prophecy: the adversaries of Jeremiah ‘p…

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I. Name Heb. ʾāb, ‘father’ (a primitive Semitic noun, with idiosyncratic plurals), is of unknown etymology but is widely taken to represent a child’s early stammer. ʾĀb and its congeners refer to the biological or s…

I. Name James. 1.17 is the only biblical text where God is called the “Father of the Lights” (πατὴρ τῶν φώτων). Most scholars agree that the expression means “the creator of the celestial bodies”, i.e. of the heavenly beings. In early Judaism there was a widespread belief that stars were angels (…

I. Name No definite interpretation can be given for the expression paḥad yiṣḥāq. It only occurs in Gen. 31.42, Gen. 53 (in the latter verse as paḥad ʾābîw yiṣḥāq). Paḥad yiṣḥāq was interpreted as a divine name by Alt (1929) because of its archaic impression (cf. ʾăbîr yaʿăqŏb) and because of its apparent resemblance to divine names of the “God of X” …