Heymam

הימם


Also called, and probably more correctly, Homam (הומם) - Gesenius' page for Heymam even redirects the reader to Homam; the name means "destruction", to the point of extinction in Deuteronomy 2:15, where the text employs both humam (הֻמָּ֖ם) and tumam (תֻּמָּֽם), both from the same root.

Genesis 36:22 names him as a son of Lotan (לוטן), descendant of Se'ir the Chorite (cf 1 Chronicles 1:39 where Chori (חֹרִי) is given as Homam's brother and Timna (תִּמְנָע) as Lotan's sister; the inference being that these were all place-names and not people).

This needs further exploring. Lotan (לוֹטָן) may be a regional variation of Lot (לוֹטָ), son of Haran and Av-Raham's nephew, and also possibly connected with Levi and Lev-Yatan (Leviathan) – see the links on each of these, but also the notes to Tehom et al. If Lot a regional variation, it is also a masculinisation - of al-Lat, one of the three daughters of al-Lah who were amongst the principal deities of Mecca before the coming of Islam.

Why the Edomite link? How does Timna fit in? Lot was present at the destruction of Sedom, and here is his son named "destruction"; is that simply coincidence? See Drummond for the zodiacal side of this.

There is also a fascinating reference in Isaiah 28:28, Hamam gil-gal eglato (המם גלגל עגלתו) which is translated to mean "he drives the wheels of his threshing wagon", but of course a 
Gil-Gal is a circular temple, and the threshing wagon is the means of dismembering Osher/Tammuz the corn-god who is also the sun-god; and we know all about driving the sun-god's wagon (or chariot) across the sky, from the stories of Phaethon and Helios and No'ach.



Copyright © 2019 David Prashker
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