LandonWillis

Author: Landon Willis

  • Shiggaion

    In the heading to Psalm 7, we read:

    A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite.

    And in Habbakuk 3:1, we read:

    A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth.

    Do you notice the similarity between those two words: shiggaion and shigionoth? Well, that’s because shigionoth is just the plural form of shiggaion.

    Well, now you’re asking, what do either of those words mean?

    So far as I can tell, there are three main theories.

    Assyrian Shigu

    One theory suggests that the word shiggaion comes from the Assyrian word shigu, meaning “lament”.

    This could make sense because both Psalm 7 and Habakkuk 3 describe stories of lament and destruction.

    However, this does not sound like a very popular nor likely theory.

    It could fit in place with Psalm 7 as “a lament of David”, but it sounds weird in Habakkuk 3 that the song is sung “according to lament”. Typically, a word like that in Hebrew refers to some sort of musical term.

    Hebrew shagah

    Both of these other theories are based on the idea that shiggaion actually comes from the Hebrew word shagah, meaning “to make a mistake” or “to wander”.

    The second overall theory is that the word shiggaion essentially means “a mistake”. If this is correct, then the idea is that someone committed a mistake in both of the songs: Psalm 7 and Habakkuk 3.

    There are scholars who try to point out how each song shows someone making a mistake. One example is how some people argue that Psalm 7 indirectly talks about David making a mistake by being tempted to kill Saul or overthrow him by force.

    This theory doesn’t hold up too well overall, but especially not when it comes to Habakkuk 3. Saying that the song is “according to mistakes” just makes no sense, especially in the context of the chapter.

    The Likely Theory

    Now, there is one guess which seems to be the most popular and make the most sense.

    This theory goes that shiggaion does come from shagah. But it has an emphasis on the definition “to wander”.

    If shiggaion means something like “a wandering”, then it could just mean a song that is wild and goes all over the place in its tune.

    And, everyone who writes about this theory always compares the word to a very specific English word. So, I suppose that I’m obligated to do the same.

    Dithyramb.

    There.

    If you already know what the word dithyramb means, then good for you. I hope the comparison helps you understand shiggaion better.

    As for pretty much everyone else who, like me, has no clue what this word means, here’s the definition.

    A wild, impassioned song. Originally in reference to a song for the Greek god of wine and drunkenness, Dionysus.

    So, when translators and scholars say that the word shiggaion was likely a dithyramb, they mean that the song was all over the place. Fast here. Slow there. High pitched here. Low pitched there. Shouting here. Whispering there. Enthusiasm everywhere.

    In the end, this theory seems to make the most sense. The word shiggaion probably meant some sort of an impassioned, enthusiastic song. So, both Psalm 7 and Habakkuk 3 were probably sung in a specific, energized way.

  • Selah

    In Psalm 3:2, we read:

    2 Many are saying of my soul,
    “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah

    We’re interested specifically in that last word, Selah.

    It appears 71 times in the Book of Psalms, and 3 times in the Book of Habbakuk in a song-like section. So, the only times it appears in the Bible are in connection with songs.

    Plus, of the 39 psalms in the Book of Psalms that are written “for the music director”, 31 of them contain the word Selah at least once. Many take this to mean that it was a word associated with musical instruction, rather than part of a sentence.

    Well, what does the word mean?

    That’s the fun part. We don’t really know. Selah has been a very complex and confusing word among scholars for thousands of years.

    We know it’s a Hebrew word, but that’s about where the agreement ends. The meaning of this word was lost so long ago that we have records of Christian and Jewish scholars in the first few centuries giving different definitions.

    But, there are a number of pretty good guesses as to what it probably means. So, let’s dive in.

    1. Calah, To Measure

    Plenty of scholars connect the word Selah with the Hebrew word Calah, which means “to hang” or “to measure”. (The meaning of “to hang” would be like how an ancient merchant would “hang” something on a scale to measure its weight).

    This theory goes that if the term Selah has a meaning related to “measure”, then it is used as a way to tell the reader to carefully measure/weigh/consider what was just said.

    It would basically mean something along the lines of “Hey, pay attention to what you just read; it’s really important”.

    The Amplified Bible translates it as “pause, and calmly think of that”.

    2. Salal, To Lift Up

    One of the most common theories I’ve read was that Selah is related to the Hebrew word Salal, which means “to lift up” or “to praise”.

    The main idea with this theory is that Selah is acting as an instruction either to the people to “lift up” their voices and sing loudly/shout or as an instruction to the musicians to play louder, maybe by smashing cymbals at that moment or blowing trumpets.

    If it were a direction to the musicians, it would be similar to our modern musical instruction “fortissimo”, which is Italian for “very loud”.

    Either way, according to this theory, the musicians or the singers (whichever it was) would take a pause from singing or playing while the other one “lifted up” their noise and praise.

    This leads into the next theory.

    3. Salah/Shelah, To Pause

    A few people also say that the word Selah just comes outright from the Hebrew word meaning “pause”. (I found conflicting sources about what exactly that word was, either Salah or Shelah).

    Because of the actual spelling in Hebrew though, most scholars say that this etymology is unlikely. Still, it is similar to the first two theories because all three have the idea of pausing in some way.

    This theory is also backed up by the Ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. It translates Selah as Diapsalma (I’ve also seen the word called Daplasma in a couple articles). Diapsalma means, literally, “apart from the Psalm”. So, this at least lines up with the idea that Selah isn’t actually part of the writing itself. Some scholars use this to support the theory that it just means a pause.

    4. Section Break

    Another theory is just that Selah is a note letting you know that the topic is about to change. Most scholars don’t like this theory, especially because some Psalms end with the word Selah.

    Why would you say that the topic is about to change at the end of the song?

    Still, the theory tries to explain this away by saying that we only have fragments of some Psalms or that the Psalms were all meant to be read in order.

    5. Acronym

    This theory is that Selah is just an acronym of other Hebrew words.

    One Jewish tradition says that it stands for the phrase from Numbers 14:19 “Please forgive the sins of this people”.

    Most people don’t seem to like this theory too much either.

    6. Latin Semper, Always

    This theory is a touch complicated.

    When Jerome translated the Bible into Latin (called the Vulgate), he made one translation of each book, obviously…. except for the Book of Psalms.

    For Psalms, Jerome made three different translations, two from the Greek translation and one from the Ancient Hebrew.

    Plus, there are three different main versions of the Vulgate in existence today. And those versions are split between which of Jerome’s translations they use. Plus, the numbers of the Psalms don’t line up between English and Latin. For example, Psalm 3:2 is Psalm 3:3 in Latin, and Psalm 54:3 is Psalm 53:5 in Latin.

    So, all that to say, if you go looking for a Latin version of something in the Book of Psalms, be careful. It gets confusing and difficult really fast.

    Anyway, in Jerome’s translation from the Greek, he just uses the word Diapsalma, like in the Greek.

    But, in his translation from the Hebrew, he translates Selah as the Latin word Semper, which means “forever” or “always”.

    Aside from just Latin, several other ancient Jewish writings from the first few centuries after Christ say that the word Selah just means “forever”.

    Considering that all the other theories have to do with Selah being outside of the writing itself, this is a fun little theory. And since forever is such a versatile word, it could fit in place everywhere Selah appears.

    Conclusion

    In the end, Selah is a weird, confusing word. But, there are many scholars smarter than I who have studied this a whole bunch and have come up with the theories I listed above.

    I hope this helped you. Selah

  • What Does Prodigal Mean?

    In Luke 15:11-32, we read the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

    A man demands his inheritance from his father while still alive, then goes off and wastes all his money in a foreign land. Finally, he comes back home to his father to beg for forgiveness, and receives honor and love.

    But, why do we call this the story of the Prodigal Son? What does “prodigal” mean?

    Well, it means “wasteful” or “wastefully extravagant”.

    It comes from the Latin word prodigus, meaning “wasteful”. This, in turn, comes from the Latin verb prodigere, meaning “to use up” or “to get rid of”.

    So, this is the story of the “wasteful” son.

    We started calling the parable by this name back when Jerome (the man who compiled the Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate back in the late 300s AD) decided to call it the parable of filius prodigus, “the wasteful son”.

    Since that’s the Latin word Jerome chose to use, some English speaking Christians eventually decided to call it the parable of “the Prodigal Son”.

  • The Onomasticon

    Have you ever heard of Josephus? He was a famous first century Jew who wrote a whole bunch of history books about the Middle East and the Holy Land.

    Much of what we know about the world that Jesus grew up in comes from Josephus. He was one of the most important historians when it comes to us learning about the Intertestamental Period (the time between the end of the Old Testament and the birth of Jesus).

    Well, like Josephus, the Christian historian Eusebius is the main reason why we know so much about the first three centuries of the church.

    For this reason, Eusebius is commonly called “the father of church history”.

    One of his most famous works is something called the Onomasticon. This is from a Greek word meaning “place names”. It’s where we get the English word “onomastic”, which means “relating to a name”.

    The full name of Eusebius’ work was “On The Place Names In The Holy Scripture”. It is a big list briefly describing a lot of the places mentioned in the Old Testament and the Gospels.

    Scholars call this kind of book “a gazetteer”. It’s like a dictionary for place names.

    For example, in the Onomasticon, this is Eusebius’ entry for the word “Bethsaida”:

    Bēthsaida

     City of “Andrew and Peter” and Philipp (the apostles). Located in Galilee on (near) the Lake of Gennesareth.

    Some entries are even shorter, like:

    Amam

     (In) the tribe of Juda.

    There are also longer, more in-depth entries, but most are short.

    In total, there are about 985 entries in the Onomasticon.

    Originally, it seems that Onomasticon was the fourth part of a four part series of works by Eusebius, all detailing the geography of the Holy Land. However, the first three works are lost. The only one that survived, more or less intact, was the Onomasticon.

    One of the other three parts was probably just giving the Greek version of the Hebrew place names. Another was a description of the geography of the tribes in Ancient Judea. And the third one was about the layout of Jerusalem.

    Date

    Now, we don’t know for sure when Eusebius wrote this book. But, most people think it was probably around 325 AD, plus or minus a few years.

    Latin

    A few decades after Eusebius died, Jerome (the man who compiled the Latin translation of the Bible, called the Vulgate) decided to translate the Onomasticon from Greek into Latin.

    Jerome did this probably about 388 AD or so.

    In Latin, he changed the title to “Book on the Sites and Names of the Places of the Hebrews”. He also added some entries and did some light editing of Eusebius’ work.

    Nowadays, “Onomasticon” can be a general term to talk about a gazetteer, a list of names.

  • What Is Purim?

    In Esther 9:20-22 and 9:26, we read about the end result of the whole book of Esther:

    20 Then Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 obliging them to celebrate the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same month, annually, 22 because on those days the Jews rid themselves of their enemies, and it was a month which was turned for them from grief into joy, and from mourning into a holiday…

    26 Therefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur.

    So, first off, let’s quickly review what actually happened in the book of Esther.

    Esther, a Jew, was in a surprising situation where she was able to become queen of the Persian Empire (more accurately, the Achaemenid Empire). An important official in the king’s court then got angry with the Jews and convinced the king to issue a decree to massacre all the Jews in the Empire. But, Esther, with the help of her adopted father Mordecai, convinced the king to issue a new decree that allowed the Jews to fight back and preemptively kill all the people who planned to kill them. So, after the Jews had killed some 75,000 people, we read the above verses where they rejoice at having avoided their massacre.

    But, there’s a weird language detail in verse 26. What do Purim and Pur mean?

    Well, pur is just the Hebrew word for a “lot”, and purim is the plural, “lots”.

    This is because the high official who wanted to kill the Jews had cast lots to determine what day the deed would be carried out.

    Also, the Hebrew word pur might come from the Akkadian word puru, which means “a stone”. That would make sense because people would commonly use stones for the casting of lots (nowadays, we would typically use plastic, dice; or I guess flipping a coin works too).

    And modern Jews still celebrate this holiday of Purim every year, typically in our month of March.

    The book of Esther also explains how in the city of Susa (the capital of the Achaemenid Empire), the Jews killed their enemies for two days, while everywhere else the Jews only fought for one day. That’s why the Jews in the city of Susa would celebrate Purim on the 15th of Adar, but everywhere else Jews celebrate it on the 14th. Today, the city of Susa is no more, but the tradition of celebrating the “Shushan (of Susa) Purim” one day later still lives on in Jerusalem.

    As a final note, the “King Ahasuerus” mentioned throughout the book is probably King Xerxes I, but we don’t know for sure. It gets complicated because the book only ever calls him by the Hebrew name Ahasuerus.

  • What Are The Beatitudes?

    Jesus started His Sermon on the Mount by calling several different groups of people blessed. We typically call this section of His teaching “the beatitudes”.

    But why?

    Well, in Matthew 5:3-11, in our English translations, He starts every sentence with the word “blessed”. In the Latin translation of the New Testament (the Vulgate), the word used is beati.

    From this Latin word, beati, we get the word “beatitude”, which we use to talk about this short passage.

    Well, what does beati mean?

    “Blessed” is certainly a good translation in the context of this passage. But, the more common translation of the Latin word is “happy” or “fortunate”.

    In fact, when the word “beatitude” first entered the English language, it could just mean “supreme happiness”. However, it very quickly developed a purely religious context.

    From beatus (another form of the word beati), we also get the name “Beatrice”. Naming your daughter Beatrice would be like naming your son Felix (felix is another Latin word for “happy”).

    And, even though the Sermon on the Mount was originally written in Greek, it seems that the Greek word used, makarios, could similarly mean “happy” or “blessed”.

  • The Millo

    In 2 Samuel 5:9 we read:

    9 So David lived in the stronghold, and called it the city of David. And David built all around from the Millo and inward.

    We see this term “the Millo” also mentioned in a handful of other places.

    So, what is the Millo?

    Well, that’s where this gets a wee bit complicated.

    We’ve got three verses and some archaeology that all help to give us some idea. First off, we have the verses 2 Kings 12:20 and 2 Chronicles 24:25 which both tell about the assassination of Joash, King of Judah:

    20 And his servants rose up and formed a conspiracy; and they struck and killed Joash at the house of Millo as he was going down to Silla.

    25 …his own servants conspired against him… and they murdered him on his bed.

    Because he was assassinated in his bed and in “the house of Millo” these verses seem to tell us that the king lived in the house of Millo.

    Remember that. We’ll come back to that idea in a moment.

    Next, let’s look at the final verse which helps us, 2 Chronicles 32:5:

    5 And he resolutely set to work and rebuilt all of the wall that had been broken down and erected towers on it, and built another outside wall and strengthened the Millo in the city of David, and made weapons and shields in great numbers.

    That verse is talking about King Hezekiah’s preparations to defend Jerusalem. Nestled in the middle of a description about how Hezekiah was fortifying the city, we can pretty safely say that the Millo was some sort of fortification.

    Now, let’s take a look at the archaeology that can help us out here.

    Not too long ago, an archaeologist in Jerusalem discovered what she thinks is the remnants of the Palace of David and the Millo. She discovered two different remains of connected buildings.

    The first, she called the Large Stone Structure. It’s shaped like a large palace, and thanks to some hints from the Old Testament, she thinks it might have been King David’s palace.

    The second, she called the Stepped Stone Structure. It’s connected to the Large Stone Structure and looks like a large wall bending inwards, like a rampart (you can look up pictures of the excavation; it looks neat). It seems to be some sort of retaining wall, something used to keep all the dirt and debris behind it from moving and shifting. She thinks that this retaining wall/fortification was likely the Millo.

    And remember how 2 Kings 12:20 mentions “the house of Millo”? Well, that archaeologist believes this is because the palace connected to the Millo could be called the house of Millo.

    There’s also another theory I read which makes the claim that the Millo might have been located a bit farther away, in an area known as the Gihon Spring.

    Also, many scholars think that “Millo” comes from the Hebrew word ml’, which means “to fill”. This might be in reference to filling with earth (like an earthen fortification), or some think it means the Millo had something to do with water (like, “to fill with water”).

    Overall, we don’t know exactly what the Millo was, but it seems very likely that it was some sort of fortification. Plus, it must have been in the city of David and was likely nearby, if not part of, the king’s palace.

  • Who Were The Sopherim?

    Over the course of thousands of years, Jewish scribes wrote copies of the Old Testament over and over again. Scholars have now split these thousands of years of scribal tradition into several different time periods.

    You’ve probably heard of at least one group that scholars have sectioned off: the Masoretes, authors of the Masoretic Text.

    The Sopherim (or Soferim), however, refers to the Jewish scribes who worked from around the 400s BC to around 200 BC.

    There is one good starting point that historians use though. Many simply say that Ezra the High Priest (of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah) was the first Sopher (singular of Sopherim).

    Then, scholars give the name of “Sopherim” to the next couple centuries of scribes also. This lasted until the Pharisees took over in the second century BC. Scholars give different names to the periods of scribes during the time of the Pharisees.

    So, what does Sopherim actually mean?

    Well, it’s the Hebrew word translated as “scribes” throughout the Old Testament.

    The word sofer also just means “to count”. Some people think this is because the Sopherim would count every letter in the Torah as part of their process to make sure they copied it precisely right.

  • Ophel

    In the book of 2 Chronicles, 27:3, we read:

    3 He [Jotham] built the upper gate of the house of the Lord, and he built the wall of Ophel extensively.

    So, what does Ophel mean?

    Well, it is obviously not a translation but rather just an English rendering of the Hebrew word עֹפֶל (pronounced something like “Opel”).

    The reason it’s not translated is because there’s a decent bit of debate as to what exactly the word means. There is, however, also a lot of agreement on what the term probably means.

    To give you a quick idea, one source I read described it this way:

    “an elevated, royal, administrative or religious acropolis of, specifically, a capital city“

    Let’s break this down.

    First, most scholars agree that it has something to do with the idea of being “elevated”. This is because when we see forms of the word “Ophel” being used in other parts of the Old Testament, it sometimes has a medical sense of “tumors” or “swelling” (see 1 Samuel 5:9 for one example).

    Most people take this to mean that when “Ophel” refers to a place, it’s talking about some sort of “swelling” area, such as a hill or a rounded fortification (or a lot of people say “a fortified hill”). This ties in with the definition above of “acropolis”. An acropolis is a high (elevated), fortified point in a city. You might have heard of the acropolis of Athens. If this theory is right, then an “Ophel” is basically just the Hebrew word for an acropolis.

    Next, the definition above says that it was probably a “royal, administrative, or religious acropolis”. This is because, first of all, an acropolis would generally serve one of those purposes. In other cities, an acropolis would usually be the seat of government (administrative/royal) and would sometimes have the most important temples (religious).

    But, there’s another reason for that part of the definition. According to descriptions of the location of Jerusalem’s Ophel given in the Bible, combined with modern archaeology, we can say quite confidently that the Ophel specifically referred to the ridge between the City of David (where David set up his citadel after conquering the fortress of Zion) and the Temple Mount. Some scholars though think that the term Ophel would have also included the City of David (administrative/royal). Others think it would have included the Temple Mount (religious).

    And some think that “Ophel” would refer to both mountains, plus the ridge between them. That would probably be the closest definition to being an acropolis. But, almost everyone agrees that the short ridge (a couple thousand feet long) between them is the Ophel of Jerusalem. Some archaeologists even found old fortifications there. That lends to the idea of it being a “fortified hill”.

    Now, in the earlier definition, there was one last sticking point. “of, specifically, a capital city”. 

    What does that mean? Weren’t we talking about some place in Jerusalem?

    Well, yes. But, we actually have two other examples of the word “Ophel” being used as a place name. Both times for a place in another capital city.

    The first is in 2 Kings 5:24:

    24 When Gehazi came to the hill, he took the things from the servants and put them away in the house. He sent the men away and they left.

    “Wait a minute”, you’re saying. “Ophel isn’t in that verse”.

    And you’re right. At least, in English. You see, the word translated “hill” in that verse is actually the same Hebrew word for Ophel. It’s just that translators decided to translate it here instead of just writing Ophel like they did in 2 Chronicles 27:3 at the start of this post.

    When you read 2 Kings 5:24, you might imagine that Gehazi meets Naaman’s servants on some random hill out in the country. But remember. We can probably translate that word accurately as “acropolis” or “fortress” or even “tower”. So, this “hill” is probably some sort of elevated place inside of the city of Samaria itself (you can get more context from the rest of 2 Kings 5 to see that they’re in Samaria).

    And, since Samaria was the capital of Israel, just like Jerusalem was the capital of Judah, the definition of “an acropolis of, specifically, a capital city” rings true.

    Plus, we also have a non Biblical, archaeological source that talks about an Ophel in the capital city of Moab, Dibon.

    In the end, Ophel is a somewhat mysterious word that is sometimes translated in your Bible and sometimes just left as “Ophel”. A good translation would probably be “acropolis”. But other good translations could be “hill”, “fort”, “elevated place”, and “fortified hill”.

    Nowadays, it’s a term used by archaeologists to talk about the ridge between the Temple Mount and the City of David.

    If you want a much more in depth and very interesting article about this subject, try https://armstronginstitute.org/907-what-is-the-ophel. I got a lot of my information from them and found it to be very well written.

  • What Is A Gentile?

    The word “Gentile” comes from the Latin word Gentes, which means “nations or tribes”.

    This goes back to a common theme throughout the Old Testament. Many passages refer to non-Jews by simply calling them “the nations” (in Hebrew, the Goyim).

    One example is Isaiah 49:6:

    6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
    To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the protected ones of Israel;
    I will also make You a light of the nations
    So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

    That line “I will also make You a light of the nations” could also be translated “I will also make You a light to the nations”.

    So, “nations” is sometimes just a catch-all term for all non-Jews.

    When Jerome was translating the Bible into Latin in the late 300s AD, he chose to translate “nations” as Gentes in most places. Over the centuries, this developed into the English word “Gentile”. And you can even sometimes use it to refer to a non-Christian nowadays.