Chol (Bible)
Chol (Hebrew: ח֗וֹל) in the Hebrew Bible is translated in different ways: as 'palm tree' (Ancient Greek: στέλεχος φοίνικος, romanized: stélechos phoínikos, lit. 'stem / trunk of a palm tree'; Latin: palma; French: palmier),[1] occasionally as 'phoenix',[2] and usually as 'sand' (German: Sand).[3] The Westminster Leningrad Codex reads:
אֹמַר עִם־קִנִּ֣י אֶגְוָ֑ע וְ֝כַח֗וֹל אַרְבֶּ֥ה יָמִֽים׃
In Jewish folklore, chol refers to a supernatural bird, often glossed as, or identified with, the Greek 'phoenix'.
Alternately, chol may have simply been a noun meaning 'sand', which condensates idiomatic expressions like ″so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the [very, very many grains of] sand which is by the sea shore innumerable″Hebrews 11:12. Subsequently, due to the context of its employment, the word 'sand' was displaced by the long-lived 'palm tree' and the very, very long-lived regenerative bird.[4]
The understanding of chol as a phoenix-like bird has resulted in an amount of discourse on the topic.[5]
Notes
- ^ LXX (see also the dictionary definition of στέλεχος, φοῖνιξ and Φοῖνιξ at Wiktionary), VULGATE, DRA, WYC, Knox Bible, La Bible Fillion.
- ^ CJB, LEB, NABRE, NRSV, NRSVA, NRSVACE, NRSVCE, WYC.
- ^ LUTH1545: Ich gedachte: „Ich will in meinem Nest ersterben und meiner Tage viel machen wie Sand.“
KJV: Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand. - ^ See also: Metaphor and metonymy.
- ^ Slifkin (2007:235-238).
References
- Slifkin, Natan (2007). Sacred Monsters: Mysterious and Mythical Creatures of Scripture, Talmud and Midrash. Zoo Torah. ISBN 9781933143187
- Lecocq, Françoise (2014). « Y a-t-il un phénix dans la Bible ? À propos de Job 29:18, de Tertullien, De resurrectione carnis 13, et d’Ambroise, De excessu fratris 2, 59 », Kentron 30, 2014, p. 55-81.