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 ofte…