Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

66 S. Japhet / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 36-76
The phrase is usually translated paraphrastically with “to be able”, and
‏.כח occurs twice with the omission of
היה פחד ה׳ על .F
This phrase, as well, is found only in Chr.:152 2 Chr. xiv 14 (13); xvii 10; xix 7;153
xx 20. Its origins are not known, but there is no reason to classify it as specifically
late. Its most frequent parallel is פחד על“‏ ‏:”נפל “The fear fell upon”.154 It
should be asked whether we have here further evidence for the meaning “fall”
for ‏”היה“‏ in Hebrew.155 A positive answer to this question also suggests that this
meaning for היה was extant at a relatively late phase of biblical Hebrew.156
This phrase is also not found in Ezr.-Neh.
לבנות בית לשם ה׳ .G
The phrase “to build a house for God’s name” is an expression of the theological
conception that God’s name abides in the temple. The origin of the conception
itself and the phrases that issue from it is presumably to be found in the Deuteronomistic
school.157 The Chr. has found the phrase in his sources in Kings,
adapted it and made it a constructive element in his own style.
He copies almost literally the following sections where the phrase occurs
seven times: 2 Chr. ii 3 // 1 Ki. iv 19; 2 Chr. vi 7-10 // 1 Ki. viii 17-20; 2 Chr. vi 34 //
1 Ki. viii 44; 2 Chr. vi 38 // 1 Ki. viii 48.
In addition he uses it in his own narrative: 1 Chr. xxii 7, 8, 10, 19; xxviii 3;
xxix 16; 2 Chr. i 18; xx 8, 9.
The phrase is absent from Ezr.-Neh. although the description given there of
the construction of the temple is designated by general opinion as “chronistic”.
152) Cf. Driver, op. cit., p. 504.
153) The use of ה׳“‏ ‏”פחד in this context seems strange. The whole account is clearly influenced
by Deut. x 17. We would have expected, therefore, because of the literary influence as well as the
subject itself, to find here ה׳“‏ ‏”יראת rather than ה׳“‏ ‏.”פחד Indeed we do find יראת ה׳ immediately
after in 2 Chr. xix 9. We can clearly see how fixed literary phrases stand side by side with others,
framed by the Chr.’s own style.
154) For example: 1 Sam. xi 7; Exod. xv 16, etc., related to it אימה“‏ ‏”נפלה “terror fell upon” as in
Gen. xv 12; Ps. lv 4 (5). The difference is sometimes obscured by the RSV.
155) Cf. S. E. Loewenstamm, Thesaurus of the language of the Bible II, 1959, p. 359d. G. R. Driver,
Biblica XIX, 61.
156) Another instance might be added from Ez. The phrase יד ה׳ על“‏ ‏”היתה “the hand of the Lord
ותפל עלי שם יד“‏ was upon” is very common in Ez. (i 3, iii 22, etc.), but once we have instead
The‏“—”ה׳ hand of the Lord God fell there upon me”—Ez. viii 1. The two parallel expressions
explain each other. Similarly it is possible that the phrase עלי רוח ה׳“‏ And‏“—”ותפל the spirit of
the Lord fell upon me”—Ez. xi 5 is the equivalent in Ez. of the common רוח ה׳ על“‏ ‏”היתה as Num.
xxiv 2, Jud. iii 10, and more.
157) G. v. Rad, Studies in Deuteronomy, 1953 (translated from the German), p. 37ff.