旧约词汇 - S

Sabbath

(from Hebrew shabbat, "to cease, rest") The seventh day of the week, a day of rest and worship; it extends from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday; it was the sign of the Mosaic covenant, and became especially important as an identifier of Jewishness beginning in the Babylonian exile. See Chapter 1.

Sackcloth

A rough cloth, usually woven from goats' hair; clothing made from sackcloth was worn during mourning rituals as a sign of grief and sorrow.

Sacred

Applies to holy things, things set apart for God in a special way; sacred is the opposite of profane.

Sacrifice

(verb, "to offer a sacrifice"; noun, "an offering given to God to atone for the sins of the people or to establish fellowship with God") Though there are many specific types of sacrifices, typically a sacrificial animal was slaughtered and burned on an altar, and its blood was splattered on the altar. See Chapter 4.

Saddiq

(Hebrew for "righteous one"; sometimes spelled tsaddik or zaddik) A righteous person, the ideal Israelite characterized by wisdom and piety; the spiritual leader of the modern Hasidim is the Saddiq, popularly known as rebbe.

Sadducees

A group of Jewish leaders, many of them priests, who ruled during the late Second Temple period; Sadducees supported priestly authority and rejected traditions not directly grounded in the Torah/Pentateuch, such as the concept of life after death; they ceased to exist when the temple was destroyed in 70 C.E.

Saga

A long, prose narrative having an episodic structure developed around stereotyped themes or object; sagas abound in the primeval and ancestral collections of Genesis. See Chapter 2.

Samaria

Was built as the capital of Israel, the northern kingdom, in the ninth century B.C.E. and fell in 721 B.C.E., after which leading members were deported; exiles from elsewhere were settled here and mixed with the Israelites who remained; their descendants are known as Samaritans.

Samaritans

Residents of the district of Samaria north of Judah and a sub-group in early Judaism; they are said to have recognized only the Torah/Pentateuch as Scripture and Mount Gerizim as the sacred center rather than Jerusalem; there was ongoing hostility between Samaritans and Judahites; Samaritan communities exist to the present.

Samson

An Israelite judge and strong-man who harassed Philistines during the period of the Judges. See Chapter 7.

Samuel

The last judge of Israel and the first prophet, he was also a priest; the son of Hannah and Elkanah, he succeeded Eli as priest, anointed first Saul and then David to be king. See Chapter 8.

Sanctify

(n. sanctification) To make holy.

Sanhedrin

(from Greek for "assembly" [of persons seated together]) A legislative and judicial body from the period of early Judaism and into rabbinic times, traditionally composed of 71 members. See also Synagogue, Church.

Sapiential

(From Latin sapiens, "to be wise") Containing or exhibiting wisdom; characterized by wisdom.

Sarah

The wife of Abraham; first called Sarai, she was barren until God enabled conception and Isaac was born in her old age. See Chapter 2.

Satan

(from Hebrew for "accuser") In the Old Testament a member of the divine council who challenged God, especially in the books of Job and Zechariah. See The satan.

Saul

(1020-1000) The first king of Israel, he was anointed by Samuel but was later deposed because of disobedience. See Chapter 8.

Scribe

(sometimes called an amanuensis, the Greek term for "scribe") A person trained in literacy who copied letters and books, and sometimes trained in the legal tradition; Baruch was Jeremiah's scribe; Ezra was a Jewish-Persian scribe.

Scriptures

General designation for canonical or biblical writings.

Second Isaiah

(sometimes called Deutero-Isaiah) The anonymous author of the book of Isaiah, chapters 40-55. See Chapter 10 Introduction, Chapter 10 Second Isaiah.

Second temple

The Jerusalem temple rebuilt by Zerubbabel and completed in 515 B.C.E. that stood until it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E.; the first temple was the one built by Solomon, which stood until 587 B.C.E. See Chapter 13, Chapter 18.

Second Zechariah

The latter portion (chapters 9-14) of the book of Zechariah datable to the Greek period. See Chapter 13.

Seder

(pl. sedarim; Hebrew for "order") The traditional Jewish evening service and opening of the celebration of Passover, which includes special food symbols and narratives; the order of the service is highly regulated, and the traditional narrative is known as the Passover Haggadah.

Seleucid

The dynasty of Seleucus, a general of Alexander the Great, that ruled Syria and Asia Minor after Alexander's death. Seleucid rule in Palestine was ended by the Maccabees in the second century B.C.E.

Semitic

Pertaining to a race, language or culture linked to the line of Shem (see Genesis 10); Semitic languages include Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Akkadian.

Sennacherib

(704-681) Monarch of the Neo-Assyrian empire who besieged Hezekiah's Jerusalem in 701.See Chapter 10.

Septuagint

The Greek translation of the Old Testament, consisting of the books of the Hebrew Bible and some deutero-canonical books, now know as the Apocrypha; traditionally dated to the reign of Ptolemy II (285-246) it is abbreviated LXX because it supposedly was translated by some seventy Jewish scholars. See Introduction.

Servant of Yahweh

The otherwise anonymous figure of the book of Isaiah (Second Isaiah) who delivered God's people through suffering, variously identified by interpreters as Jeremiah, Zerubbabel, Israel, and Jesus of Nazareth. See Chapter 10.

Shabbat

(Hebrew for "rest") See Sabbath.

Shalmaneser V

(726-722) The monarch of the Neo-Assyrian empire who laid siege to Samaria, capital of Israel, thus preparing the way for Israel's destruction.

Shalom

Hebrew word for "peace, wholeness, completeness."

Shavuot

(sometimes spelled shabuot; Hebrew for "weeks"; Pentecost) Observed fifty days after Passover (pesach), the day the first sheaf of grain was offered to the priest; it celebrates the harvest and the giving of the Torah; also known as Festival of First Fruits.

Shechem

City in central Israel that was the capital of the tribal confederacy during the time of Joshua and the Judges. See Chapter 6.

Shekel

A unit of measure by weight, often used as a monetary designation.

Shem

One of the three sons of Noah, he was chosen for special blessing; he was an ancestor of Abraham.

Shema

(Hebrew imperative, "Hear!") Title of the Great Commandment, the fundamental, monotheistic statement of Judaism, found in Deut. 6:4 ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One"); this statement affirms the unity of God, and is recited daily in the liturgy (along with Deuterenomy 6:5-9, 11:13-21; Numbers 15:37-41 and other passages), and customarily before sleep at night; this proclamation also climaxes special liturgies (such as Yom Kippur), and is central to the confessional before death and the ritual of martyrdom; the Shema is inscribed on the mezuzah and the tefillin; in public services, it is recited in unison. See Chapter 5.

Sheol

The shadowy underworld to which the departed spirits of the dead go.

Sheshbazzar

A prince of Judah who led the first return of Judean refugees from Babylonian exile in 538 B.C.E. See Chapter 18.

Shiloh

The city in central Israel that contained a sanctuary during the time of Eli and Samuel where the ark of the covenant was housed. See Chapter 9.

Shofar

A ram's horn trumpet; in Jewish worship, a ram's horn sounded at Rosh Hashanah morning worship and at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, as well as other times in that period during the fall.

Sin

Transgression or offense against God's laws or wishes; more generally in Christian belief, a continuing state of estrangement from God. See also Original sin.

Sinai

The desert region south of Canaan and east of Egypt

Sitz im Leben

A German phrase meaning "setting in life," generally referring to the context of a tradition or ritual.

Sojourn

A temporary stay, a brief period of residence; Israel's wilderness sojourn in the Sinai after the exodus lasted forty years.

Solomon

(961-922) The son of David and Bathsheba who became the king of united Israel after David; he was renowned for his wisdom; he built the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem.

Son of Man

A phrase found in Daniel 7 that refers to a divine authority figure who has the appearance of a human being; it is also the phrase simply meaning "fellow" used by God throughout the book of Ezekiel to refer to the prophet. See Chapter 17.

Soul

(Hebrew nefesh) In the Old Testament this refers to the whole person, including body, psyche and spiritual identity; it translates the Hebrew word nefesh.

Source criticism

(also called source critique) The analysis of the Hebrew Bible to determine its underlying litlerary sources. See Documentary hypothesis.

Stanza

One of the divisions of a poem, composed of two or more lines, usually characterized by a common pattern of meter, rhyme, and number of lines. See Part 3.

Succession narrative

(also called the succession history and the court history of David) A narrative block of material including 2 Samuel 9-20 and 1 Kings 1-2 that details the dynastic succession struggles of David's sons. See Chapter 9.

Sukkot

(Hebrew for "booths, tabernacles") A seven-day Jewish fall festival beginning on Tishri 15 commemorating the sukkot where Israel lived in the wilderness after the exodus; also known as hag ha'asiph, the Festival of Ingathering (of the harvest).

Sumer

(Sumerians) An ancient region in southern Mesopotamia that contained a number of cities and city-states, some of which were founded as early as 5000 B.C.E.

Superscription

The psalm label that may contain musical directions, performance notes, historical setting, and an ascription of authorship. See Chapter 14.

Suzerain

A master or overlord who ruled and protected his vassal clients and to whom they owed allegiance.

Suzerainty treaty

(also called suzerainty covenant) A formal treaty drawn up to specify the terms of the relationship between a conquered and now client state and the dominating suzerain state. See Chapter 5.

Synagogue

(Greek for "gathering") A place for meeting together that arose after the Babylonian exile; the central institution of Jewish communal worship and study since antiquity, and by extension, a term used for the place of gathering; the structure of such buildings has changed, though in all cases the ark containing the Torah scrolls faces the ancient temple site in Jerusalem.

Syncretism

(Greek for "draw together, combine") Synthesis of variegated religious beliefs derived from more than one religion. See Chapter 5.

Synonymous parallelism

A type of poetic parallelism in which the notion of the first line of a couplet is repeated or seconded in the second line.

Syro-Ephraimite crisis

The political crisis of 734-733 B.C.E. when Syria and Israel (also called Ephraim) attacked Jerusalem; the context of the Immanuel prophecy of Isaiah; see Isaiah 7.