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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The following study of some Hebrew words of magical import is a sequel to my Prophecy and Divination. Its purpose is to supply philological evidence for the existence of sorcery and magic in Israel.
page 111 note 1 It has been severely compressed owing to the shortage of paper.
page 111 note 2 London, 1938, 274.
page 111 note 3 Never used in its simple form. In the singular it is found only in the construct, or with a suffix; more often it is in the plural.
page 111 note 4 Driver, S. R., Parallel Psalter, Oxford, 1898Google Scholar.
page 111 note 5 I am inclined to think that this word and its associates are derived from a root meaning “to blow”, and that “desire” is a secondary idea.
page 112 note 1 And the cognate 
.
page 112 note 2 So Mandelkem, 309a.
page 112 note 3 Vss. here and in v. 6 read 
and 
.
page 113 note 1 Diodorus Siculus: “They (the Babylonians) try to avert evil and procure good, either by purifications, sacrifices, or enchantments.” Lenormant, , Chaldaean Magic, 12Google Scholar.
page 113 note 2 Langdon, renders “curse”, Semitic Mythology, 372Google Scholar. For the correspondence of Hebrew waw and Assyrian mēm, cf. 
and lamū 
and ṭamū (ṭawū), etc. See also Brockelmann, , Grundriss, i, 139Google Scholar.
page 113 note 3 Babylonisch-Assyrisches Glossar, 1926, 2 f. But it has the meaning “declare” only in the second conjugation.
page 113 note 4 Concise Dictionary of the Assyrian Language, Berlin, 1905Google Scholar.
page 113 note 5 Transactions of the Leyden Or. Congress, ii, 1, 546.
page 113 note 6 By Tallqvist, K., Die assyrische Beschwörungsserie Maqlu, 1894Google Scholar. Many important additions and a revised translation was published by Meier, G. (without notes) under the title Die assyrische Beschwörungssamlung Maqlu, Berlin, 1937Google Scholar.
page 113 note 7 I have counted thirty in Meier's edition.
page 114 note 1 E.g. i, 70, amatsunu lippašir, May your word (of power) be loosed !
page 114 note 2 Notably Prov. xix, 13.
page 114 note 3 It is strange that “ruin” and “destruction” have survived so long without anyone asking who the speakers were, and how they got the power which is attributed to them.
page 114 note 4 See Lexicon.
page 114 note 5 Pr. and D. 256.
page 114 note 6 Proverbs, ICC, 199.
page 115 note 1 Perhaps the difficult phrase 
in Job xviii, 12, is to be rendered “His strength is spell-bound”. Driver and Gray hi ICC. express no confidence in the renderings hitherto suggested. Further the difficult passage Ezek. v, 16, 17, yields a better sense if we translate 
by “curse”.
page 115 note 2 Cf. Ps. lvii, 2, “until cursing spells pass by” or “away”.
page 115 note 3 Quoted in Num. R.s. 12.
page 116 note 1 Another important clue survives in the Syr. of Pr. xvii, 4. 
. This word 
by which Syr. translates both 
and 
is extremely interesting. The Syriac lexicographers explain it by, 
and 
or 
, i.e. (a) slanderer; (b) man with the evil eye; and (c) bringer of evil or calamity. Lane and Dozy give no hint of the magical associations of this word; but I have found it in al-Jahiz. In the second book of his Ḥayawān, 51, he says that 
means “he smote him with the eye”. So here we have definite proof that the Syriac translators recognized the magical character of the word.
page 116 note 2 Ps. xciv, 20.
page 116 note 3 Vol. ii, 418.
page 117 note 1 On tablet iv2a 65–6.
page 117 note 2 Māmīt is a noun formed from amū, v.s.
page 118 note 1 Toy (ICC.) gives up 66 and renders 11b, “Violence envelops the mouth of the wicked”; Kittel and others would emend the text.
page 118 note 2 Quoted by Cooke, G. A. (ICC, 145)Google Scholar who has collected many ancient references to the black art.
page 118 note 3 Pr. and Div., 276 f., 282 f.
page 118 note 4 The sense of untrustworthiness is probably to be sought in Accadian where ramū means to become loose (cf. 
) as well as to throw.
page 118 note 5 Op. cit., 248, 281 ff.
page 118 note 6 50, 19.
page 119 note 1 A list of the synonyms of slander and insult in Arabic will be found in Al-Hamadhānī's, K. al-Alfāẓ al-kitābīya, Beyrut, 1885, 20 ff.Google Scholar
page 119 note 2 JTS., xxiii, 40.
page 119 note 3 The objections against importing the Arabic 
to explain 
. (suitable though it is as a word denoting slander) are (i) that it would be an anticlimax here; and (ii) it would involve a departure from the parallel usages of the verb elsewhere, see esp. Ecc. x, 12; Lam. ii, 16. The ancients thought that their words wounded and even ate up their enemies, and “slander” is an accommodation to modern ways of thinking. Further it may be said that the idea underlying the Arabic 
“slanderer” is not “reporting” (Driver) but reaching the mark. To the Arab the 
was not the man who spread false reports, but the one whose potent words (cf. 
eloquence) assailed his victim. Is this the meaning of the name Balaam? Similarly 
and 
“slandered” both derive their meaning from the idea of energetic attack which is their fundamental significance.
page 120 note 1 Cf.ICC. in loc.
page 120 note 2 Cf. 
= διαβλλειν and 
to attack, to throw.
page 120 note 3 Notice 
in this connection.
page 121 note 1 
.
page 121 note 2 Too much weight must not be laid on this point, because in the pu'al ŏ sometimes occurs instead of ŭ, see G.K., 143 q.
page 122 note 1 Found only in Jer. xv, 8, and Hos. xi, 9. In Ps. lxxiii, 20, 
is to be understood.
page 122 note 2 P. and D. This meaning was known to the Greek translators of Is. lxv, 23, who rendered 
by εἰς κατραν.
page 122 note 3 RVm. “come in wrath” a not unhappy guess. In both these cases the curse is of divine origin. The context in Hosea plainly refers to an irresistible judgment such as befell the cities of the plain and is again referred to in connection with a divine curse in Jer. xx, 15, 16.
page 123 note 1 There is no real opposition between R.V. “speaks”, LXX σημαίνει, A. τρίβων, and Targum 
. The idiom is explained, P. and D., 173.
page 123 note 2 Zwemer, S. M., The Influence of Animism on Islam, London, 1920, 84Google Scholar. “Throw” is exactly the force of 
in a magical sense. In ancient Egypt ‘the finger of God’ dd ntru was a sign of divine activity and was commonly used in magical acts. Pharaoh's sorcerers complained of its power in Ex. viii, 19 (cf. also Ex. xxxi, 18, Dt. x, 9, and Lk. xi, 20).
page 123 note 3 Cf. 
Ps. xxvii, 12. In Prov. xiv, 5, where our phrase recurs, 
must be predicative.
page 124 note 1 Cf. Thompson, R. Campbellpassim, and Maqlu, i, 20Google Scholar, Kišpuša ruḫuša rusūša, “Her sorcery, her spittle, her witchcraft.”
page 124 note 2 Notably Jer. xv, 10; Ps. lxxx, 7; Pr. xvii, 14; Hab. i, 3; Pr. xxvi, 21; vi, 54; vi, 19.
page 124 note 3 BDB., 276b. Add also Prov. xxii, 14.
page 124 note 4 As we should expect (vide P. and D., passim) the root meaning of 
is to cut.
page 124 note 5 Cf. 
“enraged”; Aram. 
“storm”; Arab, 
“murmur of an approaching storm”, where the position of 
and 
interchange.
page 125 note 1 The curious may like to consult the 13th ch. of al-Jaubarī's, K. al-Mulchtār fī kashf al-asrār, Cairo, c. 1918Google Scholar, which deals with the mu'azzimūn who practise the black art and claim to have converse with the world of spirits. In modern Egypt the mu'azzim can still terrorize the credulous by his spells and curses.
page 125 note 2 Ibn Janāḥ, Kitabu'l-Uṣul, 200, deserves credit for his noteGoogle Scholar.
page 125 note 3 It is just possible that the LXX read 
, cf. Is. lvii, 11. The Targ., however, supports R.V. 
.
page 125 note 4 Possibly Hos. vii, 16, should be added to this category; but the verse is corrupt as it stands, and it is not worth while resorting to conjecture.
page 125 note 5 lxiv.
page 126 note 1 On 
v.i.
page 126 note 2 Unhappily he does not quote an example of its use.
page 127 note 1 See Robinson, Wheeler, Old Testament Essays, 5Google Scholar.
page 127 note 2 See P. and D., 282 et passim.
page 127 note 3 Cf. Maqlū, ii, 162, 164.
page 127 note 4 Maqlū, i, 128.
page 127 note 5 Rendered tentatively “We have perfected?” (say they) . . . by S. R. Driver in Parallel Psalter. The variant 
offered by some MSS. is an obvious attempt to get rid of the difficulty.
page 127 note 6 Cf. Thompson, R. Campbell, C.T., 23Google Scholar, 34.
page 128 note 1 In v. 9 I have adopted the emendation suggested by Gunkel 507 
.
page 128 note 2 p. 15 and cf. Maqlū, iii, 89 ff.
page 129 note 1 Cf. Maqlū, i, 14, dīnī dīnā alaktī limdā, “Judge my cause, take knowledge of my way of life.”
page 129 note 2 “May the witch's sorcery not come nigh me: may it disappear with the washing of my hands in pure water.”
page 131 note 1 Much has been omitted, particularly arguments which do not seem to me to be cogent.