- TALMON oppressed. (1.) A Levite porter (1 Chronicles 9:17; Nehemiah
11:19).
(2.) One whose descendants returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem (Ezra
2:42; Nehemiah 7:45); probably the same as (1).
- TAMAR palm. (1.) A place mentioned by Ezekiel (47:19; 48:28), on the
southeastern border of Palestine. Some suppose this was “Tadmor” (q.v.).
(2.) The daughter-in-law of Judah, to whose eldest son, Er, she was
married (Genesis 38:6). After her husband’s death, she was married to
Onan, his brother (8), and on his death, Judah promised to her that his
third son, Shelah, would become her husband. This promise was not
fulfilled, and hence Tamar’s revenge and Judah’s great guilt (38:12-30).
(3.) A daughter of David (2 Samuel 13:1-32; 1 Chronicles 3:9), whom
Amnon shamefully outraged and afterwards “hated exceedingly,” thereby
illustrating the law of human nature noticed even by the heathen,
“Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris”, i.e., “It is the
property of human nature to hate one whom you have injured.”
(4.) A daughter of Absalom (2 Samuel 14:27).
- TAMARISK Hebrews ‘eshel (Genesis 21:33; 1 Samuel 22:6; 31:13, in the
R.V.; but in A.V., “grove,” “tree”); Arab. asal. Seven species of this tree
are found in Palestine. It is a “very graceful tree, with long feathery
branches and tufts closely clad with the minutest of leaves, and
surmounted in spring with spikes of beautiful pink blosoms, which seem
to envelop the whole tree in one gauzy sheet of colour” (Tristram’s Nat.
Hist.). - TAMMUZ a corruption of Dumuzi, the Accadian sun-God (the Adonis of
the Greeks), the husband of the goddess Ishtar. In the Chaldean calendar
there was a month set apart in honour of this God, the month of June to
July, the beginning of the summer solstice. At this festival, which lasted
six days, the worshippers, with loud lamentations, bewailed the funeral of
the God, they sat “weeping for Tammuz” (Ezekiel 8:14).
The name, also borrowed from Chaldea, of one of the months of the
Hebrew calendar.