Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible Online

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I. Name The association of צדק and צדקה (‘righteousness’) with the base of the king’s throne in Ps. 89.15; Ps. 97.2; Prov. 16.12 and (after emendation) l has been compared with the hieroglyphic representation of the important Egyptian concept of ‘order’: m3ʿt. The hieroglyph for m3ʿt shows that the original meaning of the word must have been ‘base’, to wit the base of the divine throne connected with the Primeval Mound. But the hieroglyph was not used as a designation for ‘base’ but for m3ʿt. An etymological connection of this noun with the verb m3ʿ (‘to lead, guide, direct’) is plausibl…

I. Name Magog ( māgôg) is known from the Bible only ( Gen. 10.2; Ezek. 38–39; 1 Chr. 1.5). Together with Gog, Magog came to be used in traditions harking back to Ezek. 38–39 as a symbol of the superhuman adversaries of God and his people at the end of time. II. Identity The etymology of Magog is uncertain. The word is almost certainly related to, and maybe derived from, Gog. The ma at the beginning of the word may be understood as representing the Assyrian determinative mat ( status constructus of matu, ‘country’), indicating that the following word is a country, e.g. *mat Gaga (usually translit…

I. Name Makedon (‘Macedonian’) is the eponymous hero of the inhabitants of Mace-donia in northern Greece. Macedonia and Macedonians figure in both Apocrypha and NT. II. Identity Macedonians particularly need an eponym (Thessalos), as Macedonia had only marginal claims to Greek status before the conquests of Philip II (359–336) and Alexander the Great (336–323). Their speech seems to have been intermediate in status between a dialect of Greek and a closely related language (Indo-European *bh gives b not ph: hence the names Berenike and Bilippos not Pherenike and Philippos). Makedon f…

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I. Name The divine name Malik, once probably the absolute state of Mal(i)kum, must originally have been an epithet meaning ‘prince, king’ or ‘advisor, counsellor’, signifying an aspect of another god, perhaps Dagan, the chief god of Ebla and of the old North-Semites. Consequently, we find it in cuneiform script with and without determinative, the latter especially when it is a theophoric element of a personal name. Since Old Babylonian times, Malik and Malku(m) were used with case endings and in the plural forms Mālikū and Malkū. The character of the formation as an absolute s…

I. Name Mammon (Aram. status emphaticus mamōnāʾ), the etymology of which is not completely certain, probably is a maqtāl form of the root ʾmn with the meaning of ‘that in which one puts trust’, with ‘money, riches’ as a derivative meaning (J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke II [New York 1985] 1109; for other etymologies see Hauck 1942:390 n. 2 and Rüger 1973:127–131; on problems of spelling see Mastin 1984). It occurs in both Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the post-biblical period (Hauck 1942:391; BAGD s.v.; Balz 1981: 942; Sokoloff 1990:311; its occurrence in a 7th cent. BC…

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I. Name Marduk was the god of Babylon and the supreme ruler of the Mesopotamian universe. Normally, the name Marduk is written damar.ud. The name has been treated by some as pre-Sumerian and the writing understood as a folk-etymology, whereby an unintelligible name is rendered understandable in Sumerian. It seems better, however, to treat the name as an original Sumerian name: amar.uda.ak. This agrees with the fact that the name possesses a long form: (A)marut/duk (= MT: Mĕrōdāk, LXX: Marōdak) in addition to its short form Marduk. While the name is usually interpreted …

I. Name Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned by name only in the four Gospels and once in the Acts of the Apostles. The name, which occurs as Maria or Mariam in the Greek NT, and as Mariamme in Josephus, Ant. Iud. 3, 54, corresponds with the Heb. name Miriam (cf. Exod. 15.20; Num. 26.59). Because of Mary’s symbolic role in the ascetic, dogmatic (especially christological) and ecclesiological reflection of the Church, mariology was developed in patristic times, which in its turn prepared the way for further developments in the Middle Ages and afterwards. II. Identity The earliest NT autho…

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I. Name Mastemah appears as a noun meaning ‘hostility’ in OT ( Hos. 9.7–8) and Qumran writings. In Qumran literature the word is mostly connected with an evil angel (Belial) and in Jub. Mastemah is always a proper name for the leader of the evil angels. II. Identity Maśṭēmâ originates from the Hebrew root śṭm, a by-form of śṭn (Wanke 1976: 821–822; [Satan] cf. the noun שׂטמה in 1QM. 14:9), and occurs also in Ethiopic. It is probable that the semantic evolution of Mastemah is like that of ʾAbaddôn: a noun for a certain concept is first connected with an angel whose role is …

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I. Name The two Hebrew words appearing together only in Job 33.23 are not in a construct or genitive relationship (as is true of malʾak yhwh, Angel of Yahweh), for they are either in apposition, function as poetic parallels, or the first noun is modified by the second adjectival participle. Malʾāk means simply messenger or angel. On the other hand, considerable difficulty has hindered the reconciliation of the negative connotations of the root lwṣ/lyṣ (‘scoff, scorn, mock’; cf. Ps. 119.51; Prov. 3.34; Prov. 9.12) with the positive interpretations of the five biblical appea…

I. Name The term mesitēs originates from Hellenistic legal terminology and was usually a technical term for a mediator or intermediary between two or more parties, such as the peace negotiator, the arbitrator between two legal parties, the witnesses in a legal transaction, the neutral party with whom a disputed object could be deposited, or the guarantor (see Schultess 1931 and Oepke 1942). Especially in the Hellenistic-Jewish sphere mesitēs is also used figuratively for the mediator between people (cf. Josephus, Ant 16, 24), and between mankind and God. In the NT mesitēs occurs 6 …

I. Name The name of Melchizedek appears twice in the OT, viz. Gen. 14.18 and Ps. 110.4, and eight times in the NT, viz. Hebrews (where Ps. 110.4 is quoted or alluded to five times). The meaning of the name is either ‘my king is righteousness’ or ‘my king is Zedek’; probably ‘king’ refers to a deity and ‘righteousness’ is a divine attribute or ‘Zedek’ is the name of the deity (cf. malkîʾēl, Gen. 46.17; Num. 26.45; 1 Chr. 7.31; and malkîyâ, e.g. Jer. 21.1). It is a theophoric name. Outside the Bible the name of Melchizedek plays an important part in Jewish and Christian sour…

I. Name The meaning of the name Melqart is generally acknowledged to be ‘King of the City’. Since Melqart appears as the city god of 1st millennium bce Tyre, the ‘City’, qrt, in question is mostly identified as a designation of Tyre. However, in view of the chtonic character of Melqart (the deity is equated with Nergal, cf. RAAM 194–195), the ‘City’ could also be interpreted as a euphemism of the underworld, called “the great city”, iri.gal, Akk. Irkallu, in the Mesopotamian tradition. Melqart is usually identified with the Greek (or Roman) Heracles (Hercules). His character i…

I. Name The name of Menelaos, the husband of Helen, is borne by the emissary of the hellenising high priest Jason at 2 Macc. 4.23 who supplanted him ca. 172/1 bce. He precariously maintained a successful relationship with Antiochos IV Epiphanes and subsequently Antiochos V Eupator until finally, around 163 bce, the latter had him executed ( 2 Macc. 13.3–8). Menelaos’ name is of a common Greek type: he who puts ‘might’ (μένος) into the ‘army’ (λαός). II. Identity The story of Menelaos centres on the Trojan War. He exists in order to have Helen stolen from him by Paris and…