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and the prophets amplify Moses’ warning of God’s coming “wrath” (Jer. 21:5). After the
Exile, God had compassion on Israel and turned His anger against Israel’s enemies (Isa.
34:2).
In the Greek version we find the following translations:
(“to be angry”)
and
$ (
(“to grieve, to pain, to be sad”).
B. Noun.
%
;<
, 7110), “wrath.” This noun occurs 28 times in biblical Hebrew and
generally with reference to God. One occurrence of God’s “wrath” is in 2 Chron. 29:8:
“Wherefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem.…” An example of
man’s “wrath” appears in Esth. 1:18: “Likewise shall the ladies of Persia and Media say
this day unto all the king’s princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen. Thus shall
there arise too much contempt and wrath” (cf. Eccl. 5:17).
Y
YEAR
(
&
, 8141), “year.” This word has cognates in Ugaritic, Akaddian,
Arabic, Aramaic, and Phoenician. Biblical Hebrew attests it about 877 times and in every
period.
This Hebrew word signifies “year”: “And God said, Let there be lights in the
firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and
for seasons, and for days, and years” (Gen. 1:14—the first biblical occurrence of the
word). There are several ways of determining what a “year” is. First, the “year” may be
based on the relationship between the seasons and the sun, the solar year or agricultural
year. Second, it can be based on a correlation of the seasons and the moon (lunar year).
Third, the “year” may be decided on the basis of the correlation between the movement
of the earth and the stars (stellar year). At many points the people of the Old Testament
period set the seasons according to climatic or agricultural events; the year ended with the
grape and fruit harvest in the month Elul: "[Thou shalt keep] the feast of harvest, the first
fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which
is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labors out of the field” (Exod.
23:16).
The Gezer calendar shows that by the time it was written (about the tenth century
B.C.) some in Palestine were using the lunar calendar, since it exhibits an attempt to
correlate the agricultural and lunar systems. The lunar calendar began in the spring (the
month Nisan, MarchApril) and had twelve lunations, or periods between new moons. It
was necessary periodically to add a thirteenth month in order to synchronize the lunar
calendar and the number of days in a solar year. The lunar calendar also seems to have
underlain Israel’s religious system with a special rite to celebrate the first day of each
lunar month (Num. 28:11-15). The major feasts, however, seem to be based on the
agricultural cycle, and the date on which they were celebrated varied from year to year
according to work in the fields (e.g., Deut. 16:9-12). This solar-agricultural year