דביר

Forms

דְּבִיר (dəḇîr) noun, masculine^[1][2] The Copper Scroll from Qumran spells it דיבר.^[3][4]

Etymology

The inner sanctuary is named from its place at the back of the temple: the noun is formed on the root from Biblical Hebrew ד־ב־ר (d-b-r, “to be behind”), with the noun pattern qəṭîl.^[4][5][2] HALOT and BDB compare Arabic دُبُر (dubur, “back, rump”), and HALOT perhaps a Punic word.^[4][5][6] Wiktionary takes the root further back to Proto-Afroasiatic *dâb- (“to be behind”).^[2] Egyptian dbr “shrine” is in HALOT, Klein and Gesenius–Buhl a loan from the Semitic word.^[4][7][8] The older view, behind Jerome's rendering Latin ōrāculum, derived it from דִּבֵּר (dibbēr, “to speak”) as the place where God spoke, but Gesenius already preferred “the hinder part”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word belongs to the account of Solomon's temple: it is first named in 1 Kings 6:5, where the side chambers are built around hahêḵāl wəladdəḇîr, “the nave and the inner sanctuary”, and 11 of its 16 occurrences are in 1 Kings 6–8.^[1] There it is the small room at the back of the temple in which the ark stood under the cherubim, the room later called qōḏeš haqqŏḏāšîm, literally “holiness of holinesses”.^[4][5] HALOT compares the cube-shaped rear rooms of Syrian temples, such as that of Tell Tainat.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Outside Kings it occurs in the parallel passages of Chronicles and once in the Psalms, dəḇîr qodšeḵā, “your holy sanctuary” (Psalm 28:2).^[4][1] The Septuagint mostly transliterates it as δαβιρ.^[1] Ben Sira uses it (45:9), and in the Dead Sea Scrolls it occurs 43 times, most of them in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, which speak of “the inner sanctuary of the King”.^[4][3][10] In Rabbinic Hebrew it is still the holy of holies,^[11] and Jastrow records that the Persian Jews used it for “the Book”, which the Talmud connects with Judges 1:11, where the town Debir was formerly called Kiriath-sepher, “town of the book”.^[11][2] The word is kept in Modern Hebrew דְּבִיר (dvir).^[2]

Timeline

• Classical Biblical Hebrew – the inner room of Solomon's temple in 1 Kings 6–8.^[1][5]
• Late Biblical Hebrew – four occurrences in Chronicles.^[1]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint transliterates it as δαβιρ.^[12][1]
• 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 43 occurrences in the Dead Sea Scrolls, mostly in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice.^[13][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. the innermost room at the back of the temple, the inner sanctuary where the ark stood; the holy of holies.^[4][5][14]

Descendants

• Modern Hebrew דְּבִיר (dvir)^[2]

Usage notes

The same spelling is the name of a king of Eglon (Joshua 10:3) and of several towns, among them Debir in Judah, formerly Kiriath-sepher (Judges 1:11).^[15][16] HALOT and Gesenius–Buhl note the conjecture רָבִיד for 2 Chronicles 3:16.^[4][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
2. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b Clines, David J. A., ed. (1993–2011), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, 8 vols, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press / Sheffield Phoenix Press, p. 2:385
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. דְּבִיר I
5. ^ a b c d e Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. דְּבִיר
6. ^ Lane, Edward William (1863–1893), An Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 parts, London: Williams and Norgate, p. 844
7. ^ Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. דְּבִיר
8. ^ a b Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. דְּבִיר
9. ^ Gesenius, Wilhelm (1846), Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, transl. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, London: Samuel Bagster, p. s.v. דְּבִיר
10. ^ a b Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss
11. ^ a b Jastrow, Marcus (1886–1903), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London: Luzac; New York: Putnam, p. s.v. דְּבִיר
12. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
13. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
14. ^ de Blois, Reinier, ed. (2000–), Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, United Bible Societies, sdbh.org, p. s.v. דְּבִיר
15. ^ Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. דְּבִיר²
16. ^ Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. דְּבִיר II