Genesis 14:1 refers to him as the "king of Goyim" (מלך גוים); he was one of those who took part in the War of the Kings. Goyim is today used as a generic term for "nations"; originally it was a distinct nation, somewhere to the north-east of Bavel (Babylon) and the term attached, in the same way that Ashkenaz and Sepharad appear to have been randomly chosen for the mediaeval Jews of central Europe and Spain respectively.
The root means "fear" or "reverence", from the Samaritan root Da'al (דעל) = "to fear", according to Gesenius. Samaritan? Rather anachronistic? Presumably he means that it came into Yehudit through the Shimronim, when they were brought to settle in Yisra-El after the conquest in 586 BCE.
Copyright © 2019 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press
No comments:
Post a Comment