Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible Online

I. Name The word Torah is usually connected with the root yrh, which means “to point, direct, teach” in the Hiphil conjugation. If so, the noun properly means “instruction, teaching, direction”. Since Torah is used most frequently of specific cultic instructions, as well as the demands of the covenant, however, it is translated as nomos in Greek, hence Eng. “law”. Inasmuch as the word commonly refers to “the Torah of Moses” and “the book of the Torah of Moses” (the Pentateuch), one may think of the Torah as “law” in the sense of the covenant commun…

I. Name The participle Qal plural ʿōbĕrîm of the verb ʿbr, ‘to pass from one side to the other’ seems to have a special meaning in the context of the cult of the dead, denoting the spirits of the dead crossing the border between the land of the living and the world of the dead. It can be interpreted as a divine name in Ezek. 39.11, Ezek. 14, which may have also been preserved in the geographical name Abarim ( Num. 21.10–11; Num. 27.12; Num. 33.44, Num. 47–48; Deut. 32.49; and Jer. 22.20). Its Ugaritc cognate, then, would be ʿbrm in KTU2 1.22 i:15. II. Identity In the Ugaritic text KTU2 1.22 describin…

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