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*
can also speak of being carried off to death or destruction by some means. The
leaders of the rebellion against the Aaronic priesthood (Korah, Dathan, and Abiram) and
their families were swallowed up by the ground: “… and the earth closed upon them: and
they perished from among the congregation” (Num. 16:33). This same nuance appears
when God says the people will “perish” from off the land if they do not keep the
covenant: “… Ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan
to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed” (Deut.
4:26). As a nation they will be destroyed as far as the land is concerned.
The verb may mean to disappear but not be destroyed, in other words “to be lost.”
God instructs Israel concerning lost possessions: “In like manner shalt thou do with his
ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment; and with all lost things of thy brother’s, which
he hath lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself”
(Deut. 22:3). Israel is called “lost sheep” whose “shepherds have caused them to go
astray” (Jer. 50:6).
Another nuance of the verb is “to go astray” in the sense of wandering. At the
dedication of the first fruits Israel is to recognize God’s rights to the land, that He is the
landowner and they are the temporary tenants, by confessing “a Syrian ready to perish
was my father” (Deut. 26:5;
NASB
, “my father was a wandering Aramean”).
Finally,
can be applied to human qualities which are lessening or have
lessened: “For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in
them” (Deut. 32:28). The word can also be used of the failure of human wisdom as in Ps.
146:4: as for men “his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his
thoughts perish.”
B. Nouns.
There are four nouns related to the verb.
*
, which is found 4 times, refers to a
“thing which has been lost” (Exod. 22:9). The noun
occurs 6 times and means
“the place of destruction” (Job 26:6).
*
occurs once with the meaning “destruction”
(Esth. 9:5). A variant spelling
also occurs twice with the meaning “destruction”
(Esth. 8:6; 9:5).
PESTILENCE
(
(
, 1698), “pestilence.” The meaning of the cognate word varies in other
Semitic languages from the Hebrew. In Ugaritic,
probably signifies “death.” The
Arabic word
means “misfortune,” similar to the Akkadian
$
, “misfortune.”
The word occurs fewer than 60 times in the Old Testament, and mainly in the prophets
Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
The meaning of
is best denoted by the English word “pestilence” or “plague.”
A country might be quickly reduced in population by the “plague” (cf. 2 Sam. 24:13ff.).
The nature of the “plague” (bubonic or other) is often difficult to determine from the
contexts, as the details of medical interest are not given or are scanty. In the prophetical
writings, the “plague” occurs with other disasters: famine, flood, and the sword: “When
they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I