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This word can mean “virgin,” as is clear in Deut. 22:17, where if a man has charged
that “I found not thy daughter a maid,” the father is to say, “And yet these are the tokens
of my daughter’s virginity [
$
]. The text continues: “And they shall spread the cloth
before the elders of the city.” The husband was to be chastised and fined (which was
given to the girl’s father), “because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of
Israel” (Deut. 22:19). If she was found not to be a “virgin,” she was to be stoned to death
“because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house” (Deut.
22:21).
In several passages this word merely means a grown-up girl or a “maiden”; it
identifies her age and marital status. The prophets who denounce Israel for playing the
harlot also called her the
$
of Yahweh, or the
$
(daughter) of Israel (Jer.
31:4, 21). The other nations are also called
$
&
Isa. 23:12— Zidon; Isa. 47:1—
Babylon; Jer. 46:11 Egypt. These nations are hardly being commended for their purity! In
Ugaritic literature the word is used frequently of the goddess Anat, the sister of Baal and
hardly a virgin. What was true of her and figuratively of these nations (including Israel)
was that she was a vigorous young woman at the height of her powers and not married.
Thus
$
is often used in parallelism with the Hebrew
$
, which signifies a
young man, regardless of his virginity, who is at the height of his powers (Deut. 32:25).
In such contexts virility and not virginity is in view. Because of this ambiguity Moses
described Rebekah as a young girl (
) who was “very fair to look upon, a virgin
[
$
], neither had any man known her” (Gen. 24:16—the first occurrence of the
word).
Both the masculine and feminine forms appear in Isa. 23:4: “… I travail not, nor
bring forth children, neither do I nourish up young men (
$
), nor bring up virgins
(
$
). A similar occurrence is found in Lam. 1:18: “… Behold my sorrow: my
2
and my
$
men are gone into captivity” (cf. Lam. 2:21; Zech. 9:17).
The standard edition of William Gesenius’ lexicon by Brown, Driver, and Briggs
(BDB) observes that the Assyrian word
$ $
(masc.
$ $
) is a cognate of
$
!
This Assyrian word means “maiden” or “young man.”
Most scholars agree that
$
and
$ $
are phonetically related; yet they
disagree as to whether they are true cognates. Various Old Testament contexts indicate
that
$
should be translated “maiden” more often than “virgin.” If this is true, the
BDB etymology is probably correct.
TO MAKE (CUT) A COVENANT
A. Verb.
(
"
, 3772), “to cut off, cut down, fell, cut or make (a covenant or
agreement).” This verb also occurs in Akkadian, Moabite, and post-biblical Hebrew. In
biblical Hebrew it is attested about 290 times and in all periods.
Basically
means “to sever” something from something else by cutting it with a
blade. The nuance depends upon the thing being cut off. In the case of a branch, one “cuts