Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

TABEEL

(Heb. ṭāḇĕʾēl, ṭāḇĕʾal)

1. A Samaritan official who petitioned Artaxerxes to halt the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Ezra 4:7).

2. The otherwise unknown father of the person whom the Syro-Ephraimite coalition (ca. 735 b.c.e.) planned to place on the throne of Judah (Isa. 7:6). The change from the original form of the name, Heb. ṭāḇĕʾēl, to ṭāḇĕʾal might be a Hebrew wordplay making “God is good” into “no-good” (or “good-for-nothing”).

If the name is personal, Tabeel was likely a Syrian officer and confidant of Rezin. An 8th-century Assyrian letter refers to a “Tabeelite,” implying that Tabeel was a tribal name, possibly ancestor to the Tobiad family in postexilic Judah. Tabeel could also be a regional or geographic name, connected to the “land of Tob” (Judg. 11:3, 5; 2 Sam. 10:6, 8).

Bibliography. W. F. Albright, “The Son of Tabeel (Isaiah 7:6),” BASOR 140 (1955): 34-35; J. A. Dearman, “The Son of Tabeel (Isaiah 7.6),” in Prophets and Paradigms, ed. S. B. Reid. JSOTSup 229 (Sheffield, 1996); B. Mazar, “The Tobiads,” IEJ 7 (1957): 137-45, 229-38.

Andrew H. Bartelt

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

TABEEL

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)