Chol (bible)

Chol (Hebrew: ח֗וֹל‎) in the Hebrew Bible is translated in different ways: as 'palm tree' (Ancient Greek: στέλεχος φοίνικος stélechos phoínikos "stem / trunk of a palm tree"; Latin: palma; French: palmier),^[1] occasionally as 'phoenix',^[2] and usually as 'sand' (German: Sand).^[3] The Westminster Leningrad Codex reads:

אֹמַר עִם־קִנִּ֣י אֶגְוָ֑ע וְ֝כַח֗וֹל אַרְבֶּ֥ה יָמִֽים׃‎

— Job 29:18 (WLC)

In Jewish folklore, chol refers to a supernatural bird, often glossed as, or identified with, the Greek 'phoenix'.

Alternately, chol may have simply been a noun meaning 'sand', which condensates idiomatic expressions like ″so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the [very, very many grains of] sand which is by the sea shore innumerable″^{[Hebrews 11:12]}. Subsequently, due to the context of its employment, the word 'sand' was displaced by the long-lived 'palm tree' and the very, very long-lived regenerative bird.^[4]

The understanding of chol as a phoenix-like bird has resulted in an amount of discourse on the topic.^[5]

Notes

1. LXX (see also the dictionary definition of στέλεχος, φοῖνιξ and Φοῖνιξ at Wiktionary), VULGATE, DRA, WYC, Knox Bible, La Bible Fillion.
2. CJB, LEB, NABRE, NRSV, NRSVA, NRSVACE, NRSVCE, WYC.
3. LUTH1545: Ich gedachte: „Ich will in meinem Nest ersterben und meiner Tage viel machen wie Sand.“
   KJV: Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.
4. See also: Metaphor and metonymy.
5. Slifkin (2007:235-238).

References

• Slifkin, Natan (2007). Sacred Monsters: Mysterious and Mythical Creatures of Scripture, Talmud and Midrash. Zoo Torah. ISBN 9781933143187

• Lecocq, Françoise (2014). « Y a-t-il un phénix dans la Bible ? À propos de Job 29:18, de Tertullien, De resurrectione carnis 13, et d’Ambroise, De excessu fratris 2, 59 », Kentron 30, 2014, p. 55-81.