Tsevo'im

צבים


Genesis 10:19 and Deuteronomy 29:22 (23 in some translations) name it as a town in the Vale of Sidim destroyed with Sedom (Sodom).

Genesis 14:2 spells it צביים (Tseviyim).

Tsevo'im (צביים) appears to derive from Tseva (צבא), = "host", a term used in the Tanach to mean both "an army" and the "constellations of the Heavens", as in Adonai Tseva'ot (אדני צבאות), "the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens". The epithet Melech Tsevo'im (מלך צביים) could thus mean either "commander of the troops", which would be logical in the context of Genesis 14:2, where Shem-Ever is named as the king of the Tsevo'im (צביים), one of the protagonists in the War of the Kings; though it could also be his kingly designation, denoting which deity he served.

This presupposes that צביים does indeed come from צבא. Other possibilities include:

Tsav (צב) = "a lizard", though the double-plural (יים) mitigates against this.

Tsavah (צבא) = to "wish" or "will" or "desire".

Tsaveh (צבה) = "swelling" (Numbers 5:21).

There is also Tsevo'im (צבאים) = "a gazelle" or "hyena"; though Yirme-Yahu (Jeremiah) spells Tsevo'im (צבעים) with an Ayin - ע - (Jeremiah 12:9), as do both 1 Samuel 13:18 and Nehemiah 11:34, and regard Tsevo'im as the name of a valley and a town in the tribe of Bin-Yamin.

Gesenius spells it with an Aleph (צְבֹאיִם), noting that Hosea 11:8 spells it that way, and therefore deduces that it mean "gazelles", as opposed to with an Ayin (ע), which would mean "hyenas", as in Proverbs 6:5 and 1 Kings 5:3 - 1 Kings 4:23 in some translations; the latter gives its name to a town and valley near Beit-Horon of Bin-Yamin in 1 Samuel 13:18 and Nehemiah 11:34 (Abu Dhabi also means "gazelles").

The former simply adds further layers of confusion, for Tseva (צבא) with an Aleph (א) means "army", and is also used, as Adonay Tseva'ot (יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת) to mean "the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens", which is to say the head of the pantheon that represents the heavenly bodies; cf Isaiah 34:4; 40:26 and 45:12; Jeremiah 33:22; Daniel 8:10, and many others. At an unknown point in history, probably around the time of the exile in Bavel (Babylon) in the 6th century BCE, the stars and constellations and planets became semi-anthropomorphised as the host of "angels" gathered around the heavenly throne - cf 1 Kings 22:19; 2 Chronicles 18:18; Psalm 148:2), out of which arose star-worship, or astrology, as we would call it, a superstition outlawed in Deuteronomy 4:19 and 17:3 but clearly still in place according to 2 Kings 17:16, Job 38:7 and Zephaniah 1:5, and palpably still in place today, as evidenced by the constant use of the astrological superstition "mazal tov - may the stars allign in your favour", used by every Jew in the world on an almost daily basis.

The name Adonai Tseva'ot is mainly applied in the prophetic books, never in Judges, and only in passages of the Pentateuch believed to have been written in Ezraic times.

Given its mention in the context of the War of the Kings, the army reference makes some sense. This needs more thinking about, but Drummond in "The Oedipus Judaicus" takes the account of the War of the Kings to be an astrological rather than a historical phenomenon, and this is highly likely (it is a reasonable conjecture that, while some historical incidents may happen to be used as contexts, nothing in the first eight books of the Tanach is historical).

Tseva is also used for "sacred service", i.e. the ministry of priests in the Temple (Numbers 4:23 and 8:24 et al), and today as "service" in the Israeli military - Tseva ha-Haganah le Yisra-El (צבא ההגנה לישראל), Tsahal (צה"ל) for short, is the official name of the Israeli Defense Forces.

This should then be read as the original priestly role of the Levites in the Temple, which was in part astronomical (the observation of the heavens to know the time when Shabbat came in, or festivals began; not the same as astrology or angelology), and that the creation of watchtowers such as Tsepho and Mitspeh was precisely for the purpose of astronomical observation.

1 Chronicles 8:9 names a Tsivya as one of the sons that Shacharayim (שַׁחֲרַיִם) fathered on Chodesh (חֹדֶשׁ), after he sent away (most translations say "divorced" but the word used is "shilcho" - שִׁלְחוֹ - not "girsho" - גרשו ) his previous two wives - Chushim (חוּשִׁים) and Ba'ar'a (בַּעֲרָא). His other sons with Chodesh were Yovav (יוֹבָב), Meysha (מֵישָׁא), Malkam (מַלְכָּם), Ye'uts (יְעוּץ), Sach-Yah (שָׂכְיָה) and Mirmah (מִרְמָה). A simple piece of genealogy, except that we have noted the astrological, and cannot avoid noticing that ha Shachar is the dawn, that Chodesh is a month, that three wives reflects the three phases of the moon, that mythologically it is always the new moon that gives birth, so the "sending away" of the full and waning moons is logical, and the number of the sons - why seven of course, as if the horoscopes had not already predicted that number!

Finally, there is an entirely different usage of the root Tsevi (צבי), which can be found in Isaiah 4:2, 24:16 and several times in chapter 28; it also occurs in Daniel 8:9 and 11:16 - on each occasion with the meaning "glory" or "splendour". This culminates in poetical references to both the land of Yisra-El, and Yeru-Shala'im itself, in Ezekiel 20:6 for example, and Jeremiah 3:19. Daniel 11:45 even goes so far as to poeticise Mount Tsi'on (Zion) as Har Tsevi Kodesh (הַר צְבִי קֹדֶשׁ), "the Hill of Holy Service".

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