I. Name

The Hebrew word שׁמים (šāmayim) is plurale tantum and occurs 420 times in the OT; only a limited number of these occurrences refer to heaven as being divine. It has its cognates in other semitic languages (e. g. Akk. šamû or šamāʾū, Ug. šmm, Aram. šmayyā, Ar. samāʾ); the equivalent in Sumerian is an, in Hittite we find the word nepiš for ‘heaven’. The etymology of the word is not completely certain; it is possible to derive it from Akk. ša mê (“of water”, CT 25, 50:17), but this can also…