I. Name

Within the context of OT anti-iconic polemics the designation of deities and/or their images as gillûlîm occurs 48 times (39 in Ezek). The etymology of the noun is a subject of discussion. Many scholars follow Baudissin (1904) in deriving Biblical Heb. gillûlîm from a hypothetical singular noun *galol ‘stela’, whose vocalization has been deliberately modified by the Israelite prophets to correspond to the vowel pattern of the word šiqqûṣîm‘abominations’. This interpretation rests on an observation in the …