cloud seven

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The idioms “to be on cloud nine ” and “to be in seventh heaven ” stand for an extraordinary high mood, for example the feeling of pure joy or being in love.

In English there is the term seventh heaven in the field of religious studies . The extraordinary high spirits, on the other hand, are referred to as cloud nine , ie "cloud nine".

background

The expression seventh heaven probably comes from the theory of the Greek philosopher Aristotle . This divided the sky as plural into seven transparent vaults (bowls) in which the heavenly bodies are embedded. One of the seven known planets moves in each of the seven heavens or spheres: Moon , Mercury , Venus , Sun , Mars , Jupiter and Saturn . The seventh vault, i.e. the seventh heaven , is the area that closes the world with all its planets, stars, moons and suns from nothing. Sometimes it is also handed down like this: ancient times knew seven heavenly spheres - also called seven heavens. Behind the last visible planet Saturn, the guardian of the threshold, the material world ended, and only the invisible spiritual world, the world of imagination, wishes and dreams came to an end.

In the apocryphal testament of the 12 patriarchs , which was written between 70 and 135 AD, it says in Levi, chapter 3: Hear now about the seven heavens . The doctrine of the seven heavens is rabbinical and described in the Talmud . According to the Talmud, the seventh heaven is the uppermost heaven. His name is Araboth (cloud).

The Talmud ( Hagiga II, 1; 12b) says:

“There are seven heavens, namely a curtain, a fortress, a vapor cloud, an apartment, a castle, a place and a cloud. ... On Clouds (the seventh) are righteousness, riches and salvation, the treasures of life, the treasures of peace and the treasures of blessing, the souls of the righteous, the spirits, the souls of those who will be born, and the dew who will one day animate the dead, justice and justice. Also found are: the Ophanim , the Seraphim , the sacred animals, the service angels and the throne of glory. "

Just as in the Talmud, the idea of ​​the seven heavens is also contained in the Koran and through it found further dissemination.

literature

  • Lexicon of proverbial idioms: heaven, p. 2. Digital library volume 42: Lexicon of proverbial idioms, p. 2819 (cf. Röhrich-LdspR vol. 2, p. 715) (c) Verlag Herder
  • K. Weinhold: The mystical nine number among the Germans, 1897
  • Marzell: Article Neunerlei Holz, Körner, Kräuter, in: Handbuch des Aberglaubens VI, pp. 1057-1066
  • L. Kretzenbacher: The holy round number 72. On numerical mysticism in legend and sacred architecture, in popular belief and idiom, in: Blätter für Heimatkunde, ed. from Historischer Verein für Steiermark 26 (Graz 1952), pp. 11-18

Web links

Wiktionary: to be in seventh heaven  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations