It’s parsed in the Concise Dictionary of Akkadian as a 2nd person (D-stem) conjugation of the verb ‘elēlu’ (‘to be pure’),
...so it means ‘you purify (things)’, i.e., ‘a purifier’,
which is a pretty neat name for a plant.
Anyway, it got me thinking about the unusual term ‘tolaleynu’ (תּוֹלָלֵינוּ) (a hapax) in Psa. 137,
which has long puzzled people.
It’s typically translated as ‘our tormentors’.
No-one seems very confident about it though.
What exactly does it mean, and why?
My suggestion is as follows.
It’s a homonym of ‘tullal’ (‘purifier’), and is an unattested Babylonian term for people who made others sing--or, more specifically, for people who made *workforces* sing.
Here’s why I think so.
As we saw, the Babylonian word ‘tullal’ is a conjugation of the verb ‘elēlu’ (‘to be pure’).
A D-stem conjugation of the verb ‘alālu’, however, would have exactly the same form.
What might such a word mean?
Well, in the Gt-stem, ‘alālu’ means ‘to sing joyfully’--or perhaps (given its nominal form) ‘to sing a work song’.
A D-stem conjugation of it could be expected to increase its valency.
Consider a couple of examples by way of illustration.
In the G-stem, the verb ‘namāšu’ means ‘to start out on a journey’, while, in the D-stem, it means ‘to make someone else start out on a journey’.
In the G-stem, the verb ‘tamû’ = ‘to swear an oath’, while, in the D-stem, it means ‘to make someone else swear an oath’.
More typically, that’s the kind of thing a shin-stem does, but the D-stem can do it too. (For more examples, see da’āmu, magāru, and nazāmu.)
So the Babylonian word ‘tullal’ can plausibly be taken (I claim) to refer to someone whose job it was to make workforces sing,
and Psalm 137 can be taken to have borrowed the word (into Hebrew) to describe the exiles’ conditions in Babylon with a native turn of phrase.
Psalm 137.3 then reads,
Our captors required songs of us,
and our songmasters made us sing joyfully, saying,
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’.
Well, that’s my idea anyway.
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The text of Job 28 is a beautiful composition. It reveals important truths about the nature of wisdom and at the same time paints an exquisite picture of the book of Job’s central theme.
Back in chapter 13, Job made an important statement. “If you would only be silent for a while”, he told his friends, “it would result in your wisdom” (Job 13.5).
Well, here in chapter 28, that statement takes on a prophetic character.
The Biblical narrative contains numerous examples of ‘righteous sufferers’—men who suffer not as a result of their own sin, but because of and to some extent *for* the benefit of others.
Joseph, Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah—the list goes on.
The most dramatic OT example of a righteous sufferer, however, is surely Job.
— Job was not merely a good man; he was the most blameless and upright man on earth (Job 1.8).
— Job was not merely a rich man; he was the richest man in the east (1.3).
— And Job did not merely come upon hard times; he lost *everything* (aside from his integrity),…
Joseph is a well known type/picture of Christ, so it’s natural for us (as Christians) to want us to map his experiences directly onto Jesus’s, all of which is well and good…
…But we can learn a great deal from a contemplation of Joseph’s life in its original (OT) context. For a start, let’s have a think about Genesis’s general flow.
As the book unfolds, God chooses out a line of promise. One by one its offshoots are peeled away as the story zooms in God’s chosen people (Israel).
The text of Mark 2.26 has caused quite a few folk quite a few problems.
Jesus seems to have thought David took the showbread from the sanctuary when Abiathar was the high priest, but the text of Samuel suggests he did it on Abimelech’s watch.
What’s gone wrong here?
Well, first of all, we need to consider a couple of relevant historical questions.
Question #1: Did Abiathar ever hold the office of high priest?