Tanach Thoughts

Shanah Tovah to everyone and have an easy fast. A quick realization that I came to shortly before Mincha yesterday: In Shmuel 2:24:18 , David was commanded to build an altar in a place in Yerushalayim called 'Goren Arvanah ha'Yevusi (The Threshing Floor of Araunah the Jebusite)'. Since it was owned by Arvanah, David it bought it from him and built the altar. This story is also recounted in greater detail in Chronicles 1:21:18-28 . Here Arvanah is called 'Ornan'. Subsequently , David decides that the Temple should be built there, and that project was completed by his son Shlomo ( ibid. 2:3:1 ). In other words, this place would become the final dwelling place of the Ark of the Covenant. Now here's what's really fascinating: The name Arvanah, as it's spelled in Shmuel - ארונה - is made up of the word ארון and the letter ה = the word 'Ark' and the letter Heh, one of the letters of the name of Hashem. I.e., the name Arvanah equals Aron H' ('אר...

As promised, a post on why I was unable to find time to make the second part of the Shiloh destruction posts for over a month. It was because, as previously mentioned here , I had gone on a month-long excavation in Tel Tibnah/Tibna/Tibneh (however you want to spell), an archeological tel in Southwest Shomron (Samaria). We were quite busy there and between the archeological work and my work as a volunteer translator of our social media posts, as well as occasional breaks, I couldn't find the time to make the post. I thought I would use the following post to discuss some of the Tanachic-era findings from the site. Not everything has been properly studied yet, though, so there's not that much to say right now. The site is identified by pretty much all scholars with the Roman-era regional capital city Timnah. Some scholars also identify it with Timnat Serach or Timnah Cheres, the city of Yehoshua bin Nun. During this first season of excavations, we mostly found Roman and Hellenisti...

Been a little while since I've made a post on name-meanings, but I had this realization recently. For some time this last semester, I had been looking into the topic of apocryphal Enochic literature, because I had been thinking about doing a project on it for one of my courses. Eventually I switched to a different topic (if you're curious, it's about the Nesiut (patriarchy) of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai) , but having already delved pretty deeply into the subject, I realized recently that the topic might serve to explain the meaning of two ancient Tanachic names. I say ancient because chronologically-speaking, these people are some of the oldest in Tanach. Irad: Irad was none other than Kayin (Cain)'s grandson, son of his son Chanoch (the first, less-famous Enoch): "וַיִּוָּלֵד לַחֲנוֹךְ אֶת  עִירָד   וְעִירָד  יָלַד אֶת מְחוּיָאֵל וּמְחִיָּיאֵל יָלַד אֶת מְתוּשָׁאֵל וּמְתוּשָׁאֵל יָלַד אֶת לָמֶךְ." "To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad begot Mehujael, and Meh...