YOU SHALL DESTROY THEIR NAMES (PAGAN GODS) Deuteronomy 12:3 And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. You shall obliterate [destroy, put to death] their names [i.e., the names of pagan gods]. Not only was Israel to remove the idols themselves, but they were not even to refer to them by their proper names (p. 1000). The names of ridicule were to be coined for the pagan gods and used instead. He points out in his commentary on this verse that Jews would actually formulate derisive wordplay names based on the original names of the gods. For example, the pagan temple called, “the house of the crest” became “the house of the ditch” in that the words crest and ditch were similar in Hebrew. Or the idol “everyone’s eye” became “thorn in the eye.” A similar example of this occurred during the Second Jewish Revolt of A.D. 135. The leader of that revolt, Simon bar Kosiba, was given the name Simon bar Kochba (meaning “star”), but when his revolt failed at the hands of the Romans his detractors nicknamed him Simon bar Koziba meaning “Son of a Lie”. Coming up with names of ridicule for pagan deities and concepts may seem like a silly child’s game to some, but could it not serve to indelibly imprint on the minds of YHVH’s people the seriousness of idolatry and idolatrous practices? Could this not be a means of guiding the younger generation away from the ways of evil and into the paths of righteousness? In following the Jewish interpretation on this Torah command, what are some present day “gods,” “goddesses” or modern-day idols that could use renaming? [hoshanarabbah.org/parshiot.html] Here are some idols that can be renamed: 1. Television = Hellevision 2. Entertainment = Sinnertainment Can you add to this list?
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 15:03:11 +0000
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