The Zer

[1] This piece is based on my article, “The Meaning of zēr,” Vetus Testamentum 64 (2014): 196–210.

[2] Χείλωμα; metaphorically, “edge, brink, or rim.” This word is consistently used by Aquila to render שפה; J. Reider and N. Turner, An Index to Aquila (VTSup 12; Leiden, 1966), pp. 254, 312.

[3] Found in a marginal comment in Greek Catenae manuscripts as a translation in Exod 38:2, the reading is ascribed to Aquila in Field’s edition of the Hexapla, but not in the Göttingen Septuagint (J. W. Wevers, Exodus [Gottingent, 1991]).

[4]  Indeed, when נזר in the Hebrew Bible refers to a concrete object separate from the human body, it is almost always translated by Targum Neofiti and the Peshitta, and by the other Aramaic targums, as (כליל(א (e.g. Exod 29:6, 39:30).

[5] Such an understanding seems to underlie two homilies of R. Yohanan in b. Yoma 72b as well. The Vulgate, too, translates זר in most cases as corona, though this is not the word it uses to translate נזר. The translation “crown” is also used in the Tyndale, Coverdale, Geneva, Bishop’s and King James Bibles, and in older revisions of the last: Webster’s, RV, ASV and JPS.

[6] Menahem ibn Saruq, Mahberet (ed. A. Sáenz-Badillos: Granada, 1986), pp. 158*–162*; Jonah ibn Janah, The Book of Roots (ed. W. Bacher; Berlin, 1896), pp. 136–7.

[7] See also Rashi, ibn Ezra, Radak, and Meiri (ad loc.).

[8] Exod 25:11, 24, 25; 30:3

[9] For the ark, this means the upper, horizontal thickness of the sides; for the table – the vertical thickness of its top; for the table’s מסגרת – its upper and side surfaces; and for the incense altar – the vertical thickness of the board forming its top.

[10] Midrash Hagadol on Exod 25:11; Ralbag on Exod 25:11, 24, 25.

[11] Midrash HaGadol only comments on the ark, Ralbag applies the idea to the table and the table’s מסגרת; neither attempt to explain the זר on the incense altar.

[12] In Syriac, zyr’ means “collar” and, later, “crown” (Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon, p. 379), but there is no reason to suppose that the targums’ audience would have been familiar with these meanings, which may themselves be influenced by interpretations of the word זר in Exodus.

[13] In congruence with these lexica, and possibly influenced by the Septuagint, many modern English-language translations of the Bible render זר as “border” (Darby, NET), the similar “molding” (RSV, ESV, NRSV, NKJV, NAB, NJB, NIV, NLT, NJPS), or both (NASB).

[14] Y. M. Grintz, “Ancient Terms in the ‘Priestly Source,’” Leshonenu 39 (1974–1975), pp. 5–20 [17].

[15] He writes that the זֵר of the ark is “an adornment in the form of a garland of flowers or leaves running right round the four sides of the ark on the outside, bisecting its height, and resembling in its form a similar adornment that was to be made for the table and its frame and for the altar of incense.”  See U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (trans. I. Abrahams; Jerusalem, 1967), p. 329.

[16] B. Jacob, The Second Book of the Bible: Exodus (trans. W. Jacob; Hoboken, 1992), pp.772–3.

[17] W. H. C. Propp, Exodus 19–40 (AB 2b; New York, 2006), pp. 380–1.

[18] Exod 25:11, 24, 25

[19] Exod 30:3, 4

[20] The five remaining occurrences of זר in the MT are in the section Exod 35–40, where the Septuagint deviates drastically from the Hebrew text.

[21] Certain early Christian writers stated that the cymatia surrounding the table of the tabernacle represent the ocean surrounding the earth, suggesting that they understood them as evoking ocean waves. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.11; Cosmas Indicopleustes,Topographia christiana 2.134–5, 3.173–4, 5.201–2. But κυμάτιον probably never had any direct connection with water, merely meaning “small swelling”.

[22] In the Lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria, s.v. κυμάτια, the word is defined simply as a projection (ὑπεροχαί) in carpentry and masonry.

[23] D. S. Robertson, Greek and Roman Architecture (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 382–3. In Roman times, a cymatium could adorn such elements as the abacus of a Doric column, the corona of a Doric entablature, or the capital of an Ionic column. Vitruvius, De architectura, 4.3.4, 6, 8.

[24] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Molding-ovulo.svg.

[25] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Molding-ogee.png.

[26] This is the Greek word from which the name “Stephen” derives.

[27]  Taken from the Liddel and Scott dictionary. The same word is used in the Septuagint to render the table’s מסגרת itself (25:25[x2], 27), so it could not have been used to render the זר of the מסגרת without creating considerable awkwardness.

[28] See: J. W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus (Atlanta, 1990), p. 397.

[29] Tassels, according to BDB and HALOT.

[30] 21 occurrences, all in the participial hofˁal form משזר. Jastrow agrees with the Septuagint’s implied etymological view of שזר, understanding the verb to be a shafˁel form of biblical זור. In HALOT, too, שזר is derived from II זור, to which is attributed an essential meaning of “to turn.” See also Akkadian zēru, defined in CAD as “braided, plaited”, and zâruA, “to twist.”

[31] It is translated by the Septuagint itself with the verbs κλώθειν and νήθειν, both of which have that meaning. The reason the Septuagint uses στρεπτός and not forms of κλώθειν or νήθειν to describe the זר is probably that the former is more suitable for gold; it is used elsewhere in conjunction with the metal (Herodotus, Hist. 3.20).

[32] Excerpted in Josephus, Ant. 60–84

[33] σχοινίδον

[34] M. Lyttleton, “Guilloche”, The Dictionary of Art, 13, pp. 830–1.

[35] From Tony Spawforth, The Complete Greek Temples (London, 2006), p. 69.

[36] K. A. Kitchen, “The Tabernacle – A Bronze Age Artefact”, Eretz-Israel 24 (1993), pp. 119*–129*; idem, “The Desert Tabernacle: Pure Fiction or Plausible Account?”, BR 16/6 (2000), pp. 14–21; idem, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich., 2003), pp. 276–80; M. M. Homan, “The Divine Warrior: A Military Model for Yahweh’s Tabernacle”, BR 16/6 (2000), pp. 22–33, 55; idem, To Your Tents, O Israel! The Terminology, Function, Form, and Symbolism of Tents in the Ancient Near East (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 12; Leiden, 2002), pp. 89–159; J. K. Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition (Oxford, 2005), pp. 203–222.

[37] G. Killen, “Ancient Egyptian Carpentry, Its Tools and Techniques”, in G. Herrmann (ed.),The Furniture of Western Asia: Ancient and Traditional (Mainz, 1996), pp. 13–20 at 13.

[38] G. Killen, Ancient Egyptian Furniture II: Boxes, Chests and Footstools (Warminster, 1994), pp. 17–19.

[39]From Wikimedia Commons, n.p. [cited 11 December 2011]; online: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cavetto_cornice.svg.

[40] R. Eichler, “The Ark in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context”, forthcoming.

[41] Killen, ibid.

[42] Box with a shrine lid: ibid., 37, pl. 28. Boxes from the tomb of Yuia and Thuiu: ibid., 46–49, figs. 57–58. Objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun: Jaromir Malek (dir.),Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation, n.p. [cited 11 July 2011]; online: http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/carter/; objects 32, 111+115, 279, 315, 316, 317, and 540+551.

[43] Burton photograph 1557. From Malek, Tutankhamun; reproduced by permission of the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.

[44] Burton photograph 1831. From Malek, Tutankhamun; reproduced by permission of the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.

[45] The excavator, Pierre Montet, describes it thus:

[The cornice has] three parts: 1. a rectangular frame made of gold, laid flat, exhibiting both inside and outside a small ledge; 2. a band, laid on edge, 10 millimeters high and just long enough to settle around the two rails [on the underside of the box’s lid]; 3. four sheets of gold soldered to each other to form a necking in a very refined style. The dimensions are calculated so that they can rest, at the bottom, on the edges of the box and, at the top, on the ledge of the flat frame. It is likely that the space between the band and the necking was filled with a cementing material and penetrated by six pegs, placed in the holes made in the thickness of the box (my translation).

Montet, Byblos et l’Egypte: quatre campagnes de fouilles a Gebeil (Paris, 1928–1929), 1, pp. 157–9.

[46] From Montet, Byblos, 2, Pl.LXXVIII.

[47] From P. Montet, “Lettre á M. le Secrétaire perpetual de l’Academie des Inscriptions”,Syria 4 (1923), pp. 337–9.

[48] G. Killen, Ancient Egyptian Furniture: Vol. I (Warminster, 1980), p. 66, pl. 108, 109.

[49] From Killen, Vol. 1, pl. 109, credited to the Brooklyn Museum; reproduced by permission of the Brooklyn Museum.

[50] Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Table” (Accession Number 14.10.5), n.p. [cited 18 March 2012]; online: http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/100001164.

[51] E. Gubel, Phoenician Furniture: A Typology based on Iron Age Representations with Reference to the Iconographical Context (Studia Phoenicia 7; Leuven, 1987), pp. 241–9.

[52] K. Nielsen, Incense in Ancient Israel (Leiden, 1986), p. 3.

[53] D. Arnold, “Altar”, The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture, pp. 8–9.

[54] G. Soukiassian, “Les autels ‘à cornes’ ou ‘à acrotères’ en Égypte”, BIFAO 83 (1983), pp. 317–33; J. Quagebeur, “L’autel-à-feu et l’abattoir en Égypte tardive”, in J. Quagebeur (ed.),Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East (Leuven, 1993), pp. 329–53.

[55] Photographed in situ by Brent MacDonald; reproduced by permission.

[56] For a large corpus of altars from Israel with a summary of their forms, see: S. Gitin, “Incense Altars from Ekron, Israel and Judah: Context and Typology,” Eretz Israel 20 (1989), pp. 52*–67*. Gitin refers to the cornice as a “rim.”

[57] Photographed by the author with the cooperation of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

[58] Photographed in situ by Eric D. Huntsman; reproduced by permission.

[59] Photographed in situ by Eric D. Huntsman; reproduced by permission.

[60] Gitin, “Incense Altars,” p. 61*.

[61] As maintained by Cassuto (Exodus, pp. 363–4), Jacob Milgrom (“Altar”, Encyclopedia Judaica, 2, pp. 760–7 at 762) and Propp (Exodus, p. 423)