Basic HTML Version
(
, 6754), “statue; image; copy.” Cognates of this word appear in Ugaritic
and Phoenician (perhaps), Akkadian, Aramaic, and Arabic. Old Testament Hebrew attests
it 17 times.
This word means “statue”: “And all the people of the land went into the house of
Baal, and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly …” (2
Kings 11:18; cf. Num. 33:52).
This word signifies an “image or copy” of something in the sense of a replica:
“Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the
land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel …” (1 Sam. 6:5). In Ezek. 23:14
represents a wall painting of some Chaldeans.
The word also means “image” in the sense of essential nature. So Adam “begat a son
in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth” (Gen. 5:3). Human nature
in its internal and external characteristics is what is meant here rather than an exact
duplicate. So, too, God made man in His own “image,” reflecting some of His own
perfections: perfect in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and with dominion over
the creatures (Gen. 1:26). Being created in God’s “image” meant being created male and
female, in a loving unity of more than one person (Gen. 1:27). It is noteworthy that in
Gen. 1:26 (the first occurrence of the word) the “image” of God is represented by two
Hebrew words (
and
$
); by selem alone in Gen. 1:27 and 9:6; and by
$
alone in Gen. 5:1. This plus the fact that in other contexts the words are used exactly the
same leads to the conclusion that the use of both in passages such as Gen. 1:26 is for
literary effect.
In Ps. 39:6
means “shadow” of a thing which represents the original very
imprecisely, or it means merely a phantom (ghost?), a thing which represents the original
more closely but lacks its essential characteristic (reality): “Surely every man walketh in
a vain show [
]; surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and
knoweth not who shall gather them” (cf. Ps. 73:20—the word represents a “dream
image”).
STATUTE, ORDINANCE
A. Nouns.
%
( , 2706), “statute; prescription; rule; law; regulation.” This noun is derived
from the verb
% %
, “to cut in, determine, decree.”
)
%
occurs 127 times in biblical
Hebrew.
The first usage of
%
is in Gen. 47:22: “Only the land of the priests bought he not;
for the priests had a portion [
%
] assigned them of Pharaoh.…” This word is frequent
in Deuteronomy and Psalms and rare in the historical books and in the prophets.
The meaning of
%
in the first occurrence (Gen. 47:22) differs from the basic
meaning of “statute.” It has the sense of something allotted or apportioned. A proverb
speaks about “the food that is my portion” (Prov. 30:8,
NASB
; KlV, “food convenient for
me”; literally, “food of my prescription or portion”). Job recognized in his suffering that
God does what is appointed for him: “For he performeth the thing that is appointed for
me [literally, “he will perform my Law”] …” (23:14). The “portion” may be something