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Showing posts from November, 2020

The Plot To Take The Crown

Recently I stumbled upon a site  that appears to have been some sort of high school Tanach project in Israel. In the site, the writers, apparently students, discussed the story of Achiyah Hashiloni anointing Yerov'am as though it was a criminal trial. They pointed fingers at Achiyah for plotting with Yerov'am to take over the United Israeli Kingdom and creating an Efraim-based government. I actually thought they made a fascinating point: From a secular perspective, it certainly seems as though Achiyah, from the old Israeli religious capital Shiloh, situated in Efraim's tribal territory, wanted to return the old glory of Efraim by seizing control of the kingdom through the anointing of Yerov'am to kingship. The Tanach provides us the religious/spiritual background, but now I wonder whether there were people in that generation who may have not been aware of all of the spiritual processes that took place and, as bystanders, may have thought that this is exactly what happen

The Mystery of David's Name

 For years now I've been acutely aware that though King David is a very impressive and inspiring person, the meaning of his name  still eludes me. So far, I've gathered a few options, but none of these are perfect. David is a short-form of Dodyahu. This is suggested by Da'at Mikra. A side problem with this is the question of why David's parents would prefer a short-form and not the full name. But I suppose that could be rectified if one would understand the name-choices of that era. A bigger problem would be that the letter Vav in David is a root-letter, making that actual Vah sound, rather than being a vowel letter, that are there simply to make the Oh or Oo sound, such as in Dodyahu. There are a few other such names in Tanach. The two that come to mind at the moment are Vafsi and Hodvayahu. Like David, I'm not entirely sure what their names mean. Hodvayahu is a bit easier, being clearly a mashup of Hod and Hashem's name. But the Vav in the middle is a mystery.