Ohel (Hastings' Dictionary)

One of Zerubbabel’s sons, 1 Ch 3%. The correctness of the MT is open to suspicion. OHOLAH (abrx, B “Oo(A)Aa, A Ὄλλα) and OHOLIBAH (n3"57x, B’Od\8a, A and once [Ezk 9395] Β Ὄλιβα) are symbolical names given in Ezk 935: u-2-%- 4 to Samaria and Jerusalem respectively. In this passage the latter are represented as two sisters, both wives of Jahweh (cf. the marriage of Jacob to the sisters Leah and Rachel, a practice afterwards forbidden, Lv 1818 [Η]}ψ.

and as havin been guilty of adultery, Samaria with Egypt an Assyria, Jerusalem with Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia (cf. ch. 16). The reference is to those intrigues and alliances with foreign peoples (Hos Fi, 2 K 16’, Is 717-25). which had the natural effect of introducing foreign manners and worship (cf. 2K 234", Am δι, Is 2, Jer 19%), and which, since the days of Hosea, had been represented and censured by the prophets as infidelity to Jahweh.

t The name ad7x may be=abnx ‘she who has a tent,’ ‘tent-woman,’ and nz Sax=az bar (cf. AQYEN, 2 Κὶ 21), Is 62‘) ‘tent in her’ (so Smend [whose words ‘soll heissen’ show, however, that the sense put upon =778 is unusual, not to say forced], followed * This district was afterwards known as Trachonitis (Lk 31), and is now called el-Leja (but see art. Arcos); though this would not include all that is meant by Argob. There isa curious notice of this district in 1 K 413.

19, t It is quite possible, however, that Dt 811 is a later insertion. ἢ Similarly, the alliances of the Hasmonman princes with Rome — condemned from the Pharisaic standpoint as ‘a ‘oing a whoring after strange * (Assump. Moa. v. 8, Fritssche, otherwise Charles, ad Rey ‘ “ἃ ἡ τος by Oxf. Heb. Lex., Bertholet, ete.), the reference being to the tent-shrines which were found at the baméth (Ezk 1618, Hos 9°, 2 K 237 [Ὁ] ; cf. the name Oholibamah ‘tent [(?

0f the] high place,’ Gn 362), just as the ark of Jahweh had from the first ita tent (287°), and as David pitched for it a tent (2S 6”) at Jerusalem (cf. Smend, Alttest. Religions- gesch.*, 137). The two names have sometimes been taken as=‘her tent,’ and ‘My (sc. Jahweh’s) tent in her,’ and it has been supposed that in the first name there is a covert reproach of Samaria’s illicit worship at shrines of her own selection, and in the other an implication that Jerusalem is Jahweh’s own sanctuary.

But, i from the improbability of Ezekiel’s paying what might be taken as a compliment to Jerusalem, the probability is that the — in n> px is simply a ‘binding vowel’ with- out either suflixal or construct force (cf. Gray’s contention to the same effect in a numerous class of compound personal names—Heb. Proper Names, pp. 75ff.) In this way the first part of the name means simply ‘tent,’ not ‘my tent,’ and Oholah and Oholibal are practically identical in sense.

The most suitable explanation of this similarity of name and meaning appears to be that it was in- tended to imply that Samaria and Jerusalem had sinned in the same way and incurred the same condemnation. The prophet’s purpose was facili- tated by the circumstance that it was common in the East to give almost identical names to brothers or sisters (Ewald compares Hasan and Husein, the names of the two sons of Ali the son-in-law of Mohammed).

There may be something, too, in the fact noted by Skinner (Hzekiel, p. 191n.) that abox contains the same number of consonants as 2% (which, however, as Bertholet points out, is always written in OT ji), and azbax the same number as o5yiy. Though the names in Ezk are urely figurative, they have a resemblance to a ormation found in Pheenician (Syabax, boSzr), Himyaritie (annydax, 5xdax), the above Edomite (?) name 752*5nx, and the Hebrew (7) name ax"ax (ef. Gray, op. cit., p. 246n.) J. A. SELBIE.