Chair (bible)

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Chair / throne with lion feet, stele from Tel Beit Mirsim ( Hecht Museum , Haifa)

The chair ( Hebrew כִסֵּּא kisse ) is the seat of important people in the Bible; Biblical Hebrew does not distinguish between stool, chair and throne. The common people sat "in the crouching position that is still common today in the Middle East" on the floor.

Stools and chairs

Ashurbanipal (on a divan) and his wife (on a chair) having a snack in a gazebo. (Assyrian relief, British Museum )

The same word can refer to seating furniture with and without a backrest. Only from the context does it become clear, for example, that the priest Eli was sitting on a stool because he fell over and broke his neck ( 1 Sam 4 : 12–18  LUT ).

The archaeological evidence of the piece of furniture in the Palestinian region is sparse. In an Iron Age tomb at Tell Fara, bronze foot and corner pieces of wooden furniture were found, which can be added to a bed and probably a chair.

An alabaster relief from Nineveh (photo) shows Assurbanipal and his wife dining in an arbor under the vines. The ruler rests on a divan, with details recognizable: it is a wooden piece of furniture on which ivory tablets have been glued as decoration. The queen sits on a chair with back and side rests. Its height requires a stool.

Chair of moses

"Chair of Moses" in the synagogue of Chorazin (replica, original in the Israel Museum )

The ancient Greek word καθέδρα ( kathédra ) "seat, armchair" went down as a loan word in rabbinic literature. It also has the special meaning “chair” (cf. catheter ), and this is how it is encountered in the New Testament: the “chair of Moses” on which the Pharisees sat ( Mt 21.12  LUT , Mk 11.15  LUT ) . This is not only meant metaphorically, rather a "marble armchair near the Torah shrine" was found in late antique synagogues, "on which the scholar sat down and taught in front of the people."

King's throne

The articles chair (bible) # throne of the king and throne # bible overlap thematically. Help me to better differentiate or merge the articles (→  instructions ) . To do this, take part in the relevant redundancy discussion . Please remove this module only after the redundancy has been completely processed and do not forget to include the relevant entry on the redundancy discussion page{{ Done | 1 = ~~~~}}to mark. Wheeke ( discussion ) 3:09 pm , Apr 20, 2018 (CEST)
Detail of the Ahiram sarcophagus ( Beirut National Museum )

The throne differed from a chair of high personalities in its precious materials. The description of Solomon's throne in 1 Kings 10.18-20 LUT is significant in terms of its impact  . This throne was not "made of ivory", but was decorated with ivory tiles, as illustrated by the garden furniture on the relief from Nineveh. He had back and armrests. A throne is also often highlighted by depictions of mythical beings, in the case of Solomon with lions. "The lion decoration ... wants to symbolize power: downright superhuman power."

One can imagine Solomon's throne similar to the representations of a throne on the Ahiram sarcophagus and on an ivory relief from Megiddo .

The reality in Old Testament Israel was perhaps simpler. A shard from Palestine shows (fragmentarily) a seated Judean king on his throne, an "obviously quite simply made chair."

Footstool

The chair or throne is often complemented by a footstool. Stools are not limited to the iconography of the ruler or deity, but have a special function here. Because the footstool makes it possible to increase the throne and thus the importance of the person sitting on it.

Kerubenthron of God

Fragment of a marble throne ( Beirut National Museum )
Group of Sphingian Thrones (Beirut National Museum)

Keruben, also known as sphinxes outside the biblical language , are winged hybrids with a lion's body and a human face, who played an important role in the iconography of the Old Testament and its neighboring cultures. (As Othmar Keel pointedly put it, a kerub resembled a cyborg more than the angelic figure of the cherub , as depicted in Christian art.) Kerubes served as guardians and carriers. The latter makes them a suitable motif for designing the side panels of a throne. Such kerub thrones of a king are depicted in Megiddo (13th / 12th century BC). They increased the "numinous mightiness" of the ruler sitting on it. A total of ten kerub thrones from the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age are known from the culture of the Canaanites and Phoenicians .

From the Phoenician culture, a group of limestone models of the so-called "Sphing Throne" is of interest (height between 47 and 95 cm, see photo), because these were seats for deities:

  • Sphinx throne from Sidon , 7th century BC Chr .;
  • Sphing throne from southern Lebanon, 7th century BC Chr .;
  • Sphing throne from Byblos , Hellenistic;
  • Sphing throne from Hirbet et-Tayyibe (southern Lebanon) with dedicatory inscription for Astarte , Hellenistic;
  • Two Sphing Thrones from Umm el-Amed (South Lebanon), Hellenistic.

The Phoenician iconography had between the 8th and 5th centuries BC. The idea of ​​enthroned deities moved into the center; enthroned people were hardly depicted. (Because of the inscription on one specimen, the whole group of throne models is sometimes incorrectly referred to as “Astarte thrones”.) This shows a proximity to the iconography of the Old Testament.

One of the surnames of YHWH is “the throne of the cherubs”, for example in Ps 99.1  LUT . This name of God comes from the Jerusalem cult tradition, because it refers to the God who ruled the world from Zion . The Keruben throne in the Temple of Solomon was about 5 meters high according to 1 Kings 6,23-28  LUT and consisted of two parallel standing Keruben figures made of olive wood, which with their wings formed the seat and back of the throne.

The throne on which YHWH sat invisibly was designed according to the images of the ancient oriental environment. The phrase “protection in the shadow of the wings” (for example Ps 91.4  LUT ), which is frequent in the Psalms, refers to the wings of the throne of the cherub.

Lapis lazuli with sprinkles of pyrite, in the imagery of the ancient Orient the night sky with stars

Heavenly throne of God

The Babylonian captivity meant a serious crisis, because the believers were now very far removed from their God residing on Zion. The initial vision in the book of Ezekiel enabled a new beginning. Ezekiel describes:

  • four enthroned beings (not Keruben, but four-winged beings, which are associated with the cardinal points and thus refer to the omnipresence of God);
  • above: a plate - the firmament of the ancient oriental worldview, in Ezekiel's vision it is as if made of crystal or glittering like ice;
  • above: something like lapis lazuli , resembling a throne;
  • above: the deity, similar to a human being, a light phenomenon, surrounded by a rainbow.

God, who is enthroned in heaven, is equally close to his believers wherever they have ended up. The wheels seen in the vision reinforce the thought of omnipresence. They are independent elements in the vision and only become the wheels of a throne chariot in the interpretation story ( Merkaba , a term that does not yet appear in Ezekiel).

With regard to the throne, the vision only gives the reference to lapis lazuli ( Ez 1,26  LUT ; in older translations: sapphire ; for a change in meaning see there). This extremely precious stone, imported on long trade routes, was associated with the night sky in the ancient Orient because of its golden shimmering sprinkles.

Web links

literature

  • Othmar Keel : The world of ancient oriental pictorial symbolism and the Old Testament. Using the example of the psalms. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1972, ISBN 3-525-53638-0 .
  • Martin Noth : The world of the Old Testament. Introduction to the Frontiers of Old Testament Science . Töpelmann, Berlin 2 1953.
  • Wolfgang Zwickel : The world of the Old and New Testaments. Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-7668-3412-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Noth: The world of the Old Testament . S. 125 .
  2. ↑ Martin Noth: The world of the Old Testament . S. 124-125 .
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Zwickel: The world of the Old and New Testaments . S. 112-113 .
  4. ↑ Walter Bauer: Greek-German dictionary on the writings of the New Testament and early Christian literature. Ed .: Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland. 6th edition. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1988, ISBN 3-11-010647-7 , Sp. 788 .
  5. ↑ Ulrich Luz: The Gospel according to Matthew . In: Evangelical-Catholic Commentary on the New Testament . tape I / 3 . Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1997, ISBN 3-7887-1580-4 , p. 299 .
  6. ↑ a b Walter Dietrich: 1st Kings . In: Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zurich (ed.): Explained - the commentary on the Zurich Bible . tape 1 . Theological Publishing House Zurich, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-290-17425-5 , pp. 768 .
  7. ↑ Martin Noth: The world of the Old Testament . S. 125 .
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Zwickel: The world of the Old and New Testaments . S. 132-133 .
  9. ↑ Erika Fischer: Furniture. P. 21 , accessed on April 16, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Othmar Keel: Strange Creatures . In: Bible and Church . Catholic Bible Work, 2005, p. 140-141 .
  11. ↑ a b Peter Riede: Keruben / Kerubenthroner. P. 2 , accessed April 20, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Othmar Keel: The world of ancient oriental pictorial symbolism . S. 150 .
  13. ↑ a b Jens Kamlah: The importance of the Phoenician temples of Umm el-Amed for the religious history of the Levant in pre-Hellenistic times . In: Markus Witte, Johannes Friedrich Diehl (eds.): Israelites and Phoenicians: their relationships in the mirror of archeology and the literature of the Old Testament and its environment (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 235) . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-53036-8 , pp. 137 .
  14. ↑ Jens Kamlah: The meaning of the Phoenician temples . S. 136 .
  15. ↑ Peter Riede: Keruben / Kerubenthroner. P. 3 , accessed April 20, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Othmar Keel: The world of ancient oriental pictorial symbolism . S. 149-150 .
  17. ↑ Wolfgang Zwickel: The world of the Old and New Testaments . S. 218 .
  18. ↑ Othmar Keel: Strange Creatures . In: Bible and Church . Catholic Bible Work, 2005, p. 143 .
  19. ^ Karl Friedrich Pohlmann: The book of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel) . In: ATD . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1996, p. 58-59 .