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Sin Offering
[Bible]The sin offering is one of the Old Testament sacrifices prescribed in Leviticus. It was offered for sins committed unknowingly and for ritual impurity, and its rite involved putting an animal's blood on the altar and sprinkling it. The New Testament connects it with the death of Christ.
Chinnereth
[Bible]Chinnereth is the Old Testament name for the Sea of Galilee, the land around it, and a town on its shore. The "lake of Gennesaret" in the New Testament is the same body of water.
Trespass Offering
[Bible]The trespass offering was one of the Old Testament sacrifices. Through the offering of a ram, it made atonement for sins that caused loss with respect to holy things or a neighbor's property, and it required the offender to repay the original value plus one-fifth.
Purity Laws
[Bible]The purity laws are regulations of the Old Testament law that distinguish between the "clean" and the "unclean" in persons and objects and prescribe the procedures by which those who have become unclean may be made clean again. They appear chiefly in Leviticus 11–15 and Numbers 19.
Jewish Calendar
[Bible]The Jewish calendar is the calendar used by ancient Israel and the Jewish people. It reckons months by the waxing and waning of the moon and adjusts the year to keep pace with the seasons. All the feast dates of the Old Testament follow this calendar.
Dietary Laws
[Bible]The dietary laws are the regulations of the Old Testament law that distinguished the clean foods the people of Israel were permitted to eat from the unclean foods they were forbidden to eat. They appear chiefly in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.
Soul (Bible)
[Bible]In the Bible, "soul" translates the Hebrew nephesh and the Greek psyche, words that encompass breath, life, a living being, and the self. Interpretations differ on the constituent elements of the human person and on the state of the person after death.
Song of Songs
[Bible]The Song of Songs is a poetic book of the Old Testament, an eight-chapter poem celebrating the love and longing between a man and a woman. In Judaism and Christianity it has also long been read as a figure of the love between God and his people and between Christ and the Church.
Joshua (Son of Nun)
[People]Joshua was the Old Testament leader who succeeded Moses and led the people of Israel across the Jordan River into the land of Canaan. The son of Nun of the tribe of Ephraim, he is the central figure of the Book of Joshua.
Damascus
[Bible]Damascus, today the capital of Syria, is an ancient city that appears throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament it is the chief city of Aram; in the New Testament it is the city toward which Paul was traveling when he was converted.
Persia
[Bible]Persia is the Old Testament name for the Persian Empire. Having overthrown Babylon, it permitted the Judean exiles to return home and rebuild the temple, and it forms the backdrop for Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel.
Masoretic Text
[Bible]The Masoretic Text is the standard text of the Hebrew Old Testament, transmitted by medieval Jewish scholars (the Masoretes) who added vowel points and annotations. Most Old Testament translations today use it as their base text.
Sanballat
[People]Sanballat was a Horonite in the Book of Nehemiah who repeatedly obstructed the Jews who had returned from the Babylonian exile as they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.
Cush
[Bible]Cush is the name the Old Testament uses for the region of the upper Nile south of Egypt and for its people. It is also the name of a son of Ham. The Septuagint rendered it "Ethiopia."
Chaldeans
[Bible]The Chaldeans were a people who lived in Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia. In the Old Testament, the name frequently designates the Neo-Babylonian Empire and its people.
Sidon
[Bible]Sidon was a Phoenician port city on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, corresponding to present-day Saida in Lebanon. In the Old Testament it appears as a neighbor to the north of Israel, and in the New Testament it stands for Gentile territory.
Kenaz
[People]Kenaz is the name of several individuals in the Old Testament. The best known are a grandson of Esau who became a chief of Edom and the father of Othniel, the first judge. The term "Kenezite," applied to Caleb's family, also derives from this name.
Libnah
[Bible]Libnah is an Old Testament place name. It refers both to one of the sites where the Israelites camped in the wilderness after the Exodus and to a town in the lowland of Judah.
Negev
[Bible]The Negev is a biblical place name for the arid region of southern Judah around Beersheba. The Hebrew word is also used to mean "south," so many passages render it simply as "the south."
Inheritance
[Bible]Inheritance is a biblical term for a portion given by God or handed down from generation to generation. In the Old Testament it chiefly refers to the land that the tribes and families of Israel received by lot; in the New Testament it refers to the inheritance of salvation that believers will receive.