International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol. 10 T-Zuzim
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THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY REFERENCE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BIBLE ENCYCLOPEDIA VOL. 10 T-ZUZIM Books For The Ages AGES Software • Albany, OR USA Version 1.0 © 1997 2 T TAANACH <ta’-nak> (_]n;[}T” [ta`anakh], or _]n;[]]]]]T” [ta`nakh]; the Septuagint [Tana>c, Tanach], with many variants): A royal city of the Canaanites, the king of which was slain by Joshua (<061221>Joshua 12:21). It was within the boundaries of the portion of Issachar, but was one of the cities reckoned to Manasseh (<061711>Joshua 17:11; <130729>1 Chronicles 7:29), and assigned to the Kohathite Levites (<062125>Joshua 21:25). The Canaanites were not driven out; only at a later time they were set to taskwork (<061712>Joshua 17:12 f; <070127>Judges 1:27 f). Here the great battle was fought when the defeat of Sisera broke the power of the oppressor Jabin (<070519>Judges 5:19). It was in the administrative district of Baana ben Ahilud (<110412>1 Kings 4:12). The name appears in the list of Thothmes III at Karnak; and Shishak records his plundering of Taanach when he invaded Palestine under Jeroboam I (compare <111425>1 Kings 14:25 f). Eusebius says in Onomasticon that it is a very large village, 3 miles from Legio. It is represented by the modern Ta`annek, which stands on a hill at the southwestern edge of the plain of Esdraelon. Megiddo (Tell el-Mutesellim) lies 5 miles to the Northwest. These two places are almost invariably named together. The great highway for traffic, commercial and military, from Babylon and Egypt, ran between them. They were therefore of high strategic importance. Excavations were recently conducted on the site by Professor Sellin, and a series of valuable and deeply interesting discoveries were made, shedding light upon the social and religious life and practices of the inhabitants down to the 1st century BC, through a period of nearly 2,000 years. The Canaanites were the earliest occupants. In accordance with Biblical history, “there is no evidence of a break or abrupt change in the civilization between the Canaanite and the Israelite occupation of Taanach; the excavations Show rather gradual development. The Canaanites will have gradually assimilated the Israelites drawn to them from the villages in the plain” (Driver, Schweich Lectures, 1908, 84). In the work just cited Driver gives an admirable summary of the results obtained by Professor Sellin. In his book on the Religion of Ancient Palestine, Professor Stanley A. Cook has 3 shown, in short compass, what excellent use may be made of the results thus furnished. W. Ewing TAANATH-SHILOH <ta’-a-nath-shi’-lo> (tn”a}T” hloovi”[ta’-anath shiloh]; Codex Vaticanus [Qhnasa< kai< Sellhsa>, Thenasa kai Sellesa], [Thnaqshlw>, Tenathselo]): A town on the border of the territory of Ephraim named between Michmethath and Janoah (<061606>Joshua 16:6). According to Eusebius, Onomasticon (s.v. “Thena”) it lay about 10 Roman miles East of Neapolis, on the road to the Jordan. Ptolemy speaks of Thena, probably the same place, as a town in Samaria (<061601>Joshua 16:16,5). It may be identified with Ta`na, a village about 7 miles Southeast of Nablus. Yanun, the ancient Janoah, lies 2 miles to the South. A Roman road from Neapolis to the Jordan valley passed this way. At Ta`na there are “foundations, caves, cisterns and rockcut tombs” (PEFM, II, 245). This identification being quite satisfactory, the Talmudic notion that Taanath-shiloh was the same place as Shiloh may be dismissed (Jerusalem Talmud, Meghillah, i). W. Ewing TABAOTH, TABBAOTH <ta-ba’-oth>, <tab’-a-oth> (twO[B;f” [tabba`oth]; [Tabaw>q, Tabaoth], [Tabw>q, Taboth]): The name of a family of temple-servants (1 Esdras 5:29) = “Tabbaoth” (Hebrew: Tabba`oth]) of Ezr 2:43; <160746>Nehemiah 7:46; perhaps called after the name of a place. Compare TABBATH. TABBATH <tab’-ath> (tB;f” [Tabbath]; Codex Vaticanus [Taba>q, Tabath]; [Gaba>q, Gabath]): A place named after Abel-meholah in the account of the Midianite flight before Gideon (<070723>Judges 7:23). It must therefore have been a place in the Jordan valley to the East of Beth-shan. No trace of the name has yet been recovered. 4 TABEEL <ta’-be-el>: A name meaning “good is God,” borne by two persons in the Old Testament (<230706>Isaiah 7:6, the King James Version, “Tabeal”). (1) The father of the man whom the kings of Israel and Damascus planned to place upon the throne of Judah (<230706>Isaiah 7:6). The form of the name laeb]fâ; [Tabhe’el], suggests that he was a Syrian; his son evidently was a tool of Rezin, king of Damascus. The name is vocalized so as to read Tebeal (la”b]t; [Tabhe’al]), which might be translated “good for nothing,” though some explain it as a pausal form, with the ordinary meaning. The change, probably due to a desire to express contempt, is very slight in Hebrew. (2) A Persian official in Samaria (laeb]t; [Tabhe’el]) (Ezr 4:7). All that is known of him is that he joined with other officials in sending a letter to Artaxerxes for the purpose of hindering the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. F. C. Eiselen TABELLIUS <ta-bel’-i-us> ([Tabe>lliov, Tabellios]): One of the Persian officials in Samaria who wrote a letter to Artaxerxes which caused the rebuilding of Jerusalem to be stopped for a time (1 Esdras 2:16) = “Tabeel” of Ezr 4:7. TABER <ta’-ber> (rP’T; [taphaph], “to strike a timbrel” ((<196825>Psalm 68:25)): The word is used only once in the King James Version, namely, in the exceedingly graphic account of the capture of Nineveh given in <340207>Nahum 2:7. The queen (perhaps the city personified) is dishonored and led into ignominious captivity, followed by a mourning retinue of “maids of honor” who taber upon, that is, beat violently, their breasts. Such drumming on the breasts was a gesture indicative of great grief (<421803>Luke 18:3). 5 TABERAH <tab’-e-ra>, <ta-be’-ra> (hr;[eb]T” [tabh`erah], “burning”): A wilderness camp of the Israelites, the site of which is unidentified. Here, it is recorded, the people complained against Yahweh, who destroyed many of them by fire. This is the origin of the name (<041103>Numbers 11:3; <050922>Deuteronomy 9:22). TABERNACLE <tab’-er-na-k’l> (d[ewOm lh,ao [’ohel mo`edh] “tent of meeting,” ˆK;v]mi [mishkan], “dwelling”; [skhnh>, skene]): A. STRUCTURE AND HISTORY I. Introductory. Altars sacred to Yahweh were earlier than sacred buildings. Abraham built such detached altars at the Terebinth of Moreh (<011206>Genesis 12:6,7), and again between Beth-el and Ai (<011208>Genesis 12:8). Though he built altars in more places than one, his conception of God was already monotheistic. The “Judge of all the earth” (<011825>Genesis 18:25) was no tribal deity. This monotheistic ideal was embodied and proclaimed in the tabernacle and in the subsequent temples of which the tabernacle was the prototype. 1. Earlier “Tent of Meeting”: The first step toward a habitation for the Deity worshipped at the altar was taken at Sinai, when Moses builded not only “an altar under the mount,” but “12 pillars, according to the 12 tribes of Israel” (<022404>Exodus 24:4). There is no recorded command to this effect, and there was as yet no separated priesthood, and sacrifices were offered by “young men of the children of Israel” (<022405>Exodus 24:5); but already the need of a separated structure was becoming evident. Later, but still at Sinai, after the sin of the golden calf, Moses is stated to have pitched “the tent” (as if well known: the tense is frequentative, “used to take the tent and to pitch it”) “without the camp, afar off,” and to have called it, “the tent of meeting,” a term often met with afterward (<023307>Exodus 33:7 ff). This “tent” was not yet the tabernacle proper, but served an interim purpose. The ark was not yet made; a priesthood was not yet appointed; it was “without the camp”; Joshua was the sole minister (<023311>Exodus 33:11). It was a simple place of 6 revelation and of the meeting of the people with Yahweh (<023307>Exodus 33:7,9-11). Critics, on the other hand, identifying this “tent” with that in <041116>Numbers 11:16 ff; 12:4 ff; <053114>Deuteronomy 31:14,15 (ascribed to the Elohist source), regard it as the primitive tent of the wanderings, and on the ground of these differences from the tabernacle, described later (in the Priestly Code), deny the historicity of the latter. On this see below under B, 4, (5). 2. A Stage in Revelation: No doubt this localization of the shrine of Yahweh afforded occasion for a possible misconception of Yahweh as a tribal Deity. We must remember that here and throughout we have to do with the education of a people whose instincts and surroundings were by no means monotheistic. It was necessary that their education should begin with some sort of concession to existing ideas. They were not yet, nor for long afterward, capable of the conception of a God who dwelleth not in temples made with hands. So an altar and a tent were given them; but in the fact that this habitation of God was not fixed to one spot, but was removed from place to place in the nomad life of the Israelites, they had a persistent education leading them away from the idea of local and tribal deities.