On מקור maqôr
“Maqôr” – The Womb as a Source (“maqôr”)
and as a Grave
[In] JT Berakhot 2:5 (14)
states: “May your fountain” (maqôr) he blessed, and rejoice in the wife
of your youth” (Prov 5:18), i.e., may your arrival at the grave be blessed. R.
Berekhya said: “There is a time to give birth and a time to die (Qoh 3:2). Blessed
is the man whose hour of death is like the house of his birth.”
Maqôr in
this context means “womb.” In the language of the Sages, it is also referred to
as the “grave” (BT Shabbat 129a), since it is like a grave for the
fetus. Just as this “grave” is the origin of the infant’s life, so too is the
grave of a man the origin for resurrection of the dead, as they will be born from
it. Therefore, the term maqôr (“source”) may allude to both the womb and
the grave, and to birth and death. (Zvi Malachi, “’Creative Philology’ As a
System of Biblical and Talmudic Exegesis: Creating Midrashic Interpretations form
Multi-Meaning Words in the Midrash and the Zohar,” in Puns and Pundits: Word
Play in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Literature, ed. Scott B.
Noegel [Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 2000], 272)
On מקום maqôm
One that has struck me is the
Hebrew word maqom, which literally means “place of arising.” It comes from a verb meaning to arise, stand
up, stand on one's feet. It is interesting that in some Bible passages it should
be referred to as a grave or a tomb, such as in Job 16:18; Ezekiel 39:11;
Ecclesiastes 3:20; 6:6. Sometimes it is used as a place where the spirits of
the dead go. In Phoenician, which is related to Hebrew, using the same ancient
alphabet and spoken in ancient Lebanon and Canaan, the term is used only for a
gravesite. There are number of tombs of Phoenician kings that have an
inscription reading “Do not disturb this maqom.” What interests me here is that
in the Book of Mormon I found eleven places where the word 'place' (which is
the usual translation of maqom in the Bible) is used where someone has died, or
where he was buried, or where his spirit went after he died. So it's used in
that range of meanings, and in Joseph Smith's day nobody had ever suggested
that those were meanings applicable to the Hebrew word. All that came about
long after his time. (John A. Tvedtnes, Some Book of Mormon
"Hits")
Tvedtnes does not list his 11 examples from the Book of Mormon,
but perhaps they included the following:
And it came to pass that Ishmael
died, and was buried in the place which was called Nahom. (1 Nephi 16:34)
Yea, they are grasped with death,
and hell; and death, and hell, and the devil, and all that have been seized
therewith must stand before the throne of God, and be judged according to their
works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake
of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment. (2 Nephi 28:23)
Yea, and are willing to mourn with
those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to
stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places
that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be
numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life
(Mosiah 18:9)
