Is There any Rust in the Bible?

Abstract

Mony Almalech comments the fact that in the Old Testament the Hebrew word for rust (heled – root Het-Lamed-Daleth) is never used in its primary meaning ‘rust’ but in its different meanings (age, world, time). Thus, the question rise “Is there any rust in the Old Testament?”– primary and symbolically. From the root of heled are derived the proper names Helday and Haluda. Their implicit meaning is ‘a person who is red haired’. The single use of rust in the Old Testament is in Ezekiel, 24. But the Hebrew word used by Ezekiel for rust is hela (root Het-Lamed-Aleph). This is not the usual one for ‘rust’ but a word which is a derivate from sickness mahala. Ezekiel prefers to express for a symbol of sins the Hebrew word hela translated as rust. But the root of hela denotes the string ‘sickness’, ‘disease’, ‘illness’; ‘be or become sick’, ‘weak’, ‘diseased’, ‘grieved’, ‘sorry’. At the same time Ezekiel, 24 presents the single description of the Hell in the Old Testament as a place of fire where the sins (hela) are melted. The usual Old Testament notion for hell is Sheol – a dark place, a grave. Short comparison is made between the Old Testament term for rust to the New Testament Greek terms for rust. The conclusions made by Almalech are: 1. The word hela expresses the prophetic symbolism of the rust as “sickness”. 2. The number of the uses as prophetic strategy kept more than 1000 years. In the Old Testament there are only three uses of the word rust - in the Saying for the boiling pot by Ezekiel. This very small number is already a symbol. Obviously the prophets avoid the use of the words for rust. 3. The Ezekiel’s rust-sickness is a part of the Old Testament notion on Purgatory in the hell, just as the Christianity has developed this notion during the centuries. This is despite the fact that the basic Old Testament notion for hell is Sheol “dark place”, “grave”, “place of the dead”. 4. The Old Testament has no rust – neither symbolically nor lexically. In the New Testament there are 4 uses of rust. All of them could be understood symbolically but from the context.