I. Name

The term yiddĕʿōnî occurs 11 times in the OT, always in parallellism with ʾôb ‘ancestor, ancestral spirit, ghost’ (Lev. 19.31; Lev. 20.6, Lev. 27; Deut. 18.11; 1 Sam. 28.3, 1 Sam. 9; 2 Kings. 21.6 // 2 Chron. 33.6; 2 Kings. 23.24; Isa. 8.19; Isa. 19.3; Spirit of the dead). It is certain that the word is a nominal form (supplemented with the afformative -ōn [ʾ *-ān] and the gentilic -î). The pattern is comparatively rare in Hebrew, though comparable forms exist in qadmônî ‘east of, earlier’, ʾadmôn…