G. B. Gray.
TALMON (p\o, in Neh 12» ps^o).— The name of a family of temple gatekeepers, 1 Ch 9", Ezr ^, Neh 7" 11" 12^ (B Ta^MiiM, TeXMU", TcXomu", TeXa- tielv ; A TfX/idi', TeX^iiy, ToX/iiiv ; Luc. 'ZcKii.wv, except in 1 Ch 9" TeX^iii'). See, also, Telem.
TAMAR (ncB ' palm-tree '). — 1. (Qa^iip) A Canaan- ite woman, married to Er and then to his brother Onan. When Judah, deterred by the death, successively, of two sons, hesitated to give his sur- viving son, Shelah, to perform the duty of levir (see Marriage, vol. iii. p. 269"), Tamar, who had assumed the disguise of a kedeshah in order to ettect her j)urpose, became by her father-in-law himself the mother of t^vin sons, Perez and Zerah (Gn 38 [J], Ru 4"% l Ch 2<, Mt P). 2. (Qvi^p, Qa/xdp) The beautiful sister of Absalom, who was violated and brutally insulted by her half-brother, Amnon, 2S 13'. This conduct led to the murder of the latter by Absalom, v.^*- The significance of V." ('speak unto the king, for he will not with- hold me from thee') is noticed in art. Marriage, vol. iii. p. 267''. 3. A daughter of Absalom (2 S 14" B Omip, A Oapuip). The LXX adds that she became the wife of Rehoboam. She would thus be identical with Maacah of 1 K 15=, 2 Ch 11»»-. Indei d ]>ucian reads Maaxi even in 2.S 14-''. This question, however, of the identity of Rehoboam's wife is involved in considerable obscurity. See the Comm. ad loc. J. A. Selbie.
TAMAR (1=1? 'palm-tree'; eoi/ioV ; Thamar).— 1. In the vi.sion of Ezekiel, the eastern boundary of the land which the twelve tribes were to inherit was to terminate at the East, or Dead Sea ; and the S. boundary was to be ' from Tamar as far as the waters of Meribothkadesh to the wady of Egj'pt ' (Ezk47'"; read also .t;".? ' unto Tamar,' for nro ' ye shall measure ' in v.'*). The land was to be divided into parallel strips extending from E. to W., and the southern strip was to be assigned to Gad, whose S. boundary was to be that of the twelve tribes (Ezk 48'-'''). A com])arison of the boundaries in Ezk 47 with those given in Nu 34, shows that the same limits are intended, and Tamar must therefore be looked for in the Wcinity of the ascent of Akrabbim to the S. of the Dead Sea (cf. the boundary of Judah in Jos 15'"*). Tamar cannot be ' Hazazon - tamar which is En"edi' (2 Ch 20"), for this place is near the middle of the W. shore of the Dead Sea, and is mentioned under its later name bj Ezekiel (47'°). It may possibly be the As<isan Thamar of Eusebius and Jerome (Onom. S.'i. 3, 210. 86), which they identified with Thamara, a village with a fort and Roman garrison, which was a
day's journey from Hebron on the road to Elath. This place appeare as Thamaro in the Peutinger Tables, on the road from Hebron to Petra ; and as a place in Judiea in Ptolemy (V. xvi. 8). But it has not yet been identified.
2. In 1 K 9'« the RV, following the KUhlbh, reads Tamar (B om., A Gfp/xdff) as the name of one of the places which Solomon built, whilst AV, following the Jfiri, reads Tadmor (cf. 2 Ch 8*). All the other places mentioned in tliis passage, Gezer, Beth-horon, and Baalath, are in Southern Palestine, and the expression 'Tamar in the wilderness, in the land,' seems to imply that, like Baalath, it was either in the Negeb, or in the wilderness of Judah. It is probably the same place as No. 1 above. ' Tadmor ' of the KerS prob. came from 2 Ch 8'', and its place there may have been due to a characteristic desire on the part of the Chronicler to bring Solomon into con- nexion with the historic Palmyra (see Thenius or Kittel, ad loc). C. W. Wilson.
TAMARISK (Wn, apoi-pa).— This name occurs 3 times in OT (RV only ; see Grove, No. 2). Abra- ham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, Gn 21" (J) ; Saul sat under the tamarisk n?^? 1 S 22* ; Saul and his sons were buried under the tamarisk in Jabesh, IS 31". There are 8 or perhaps 9 species of tamarisk in Palestine and Syria. Of these the most abundant are 2'amarix Syriaca, Boiss., T. tetrandra. Pall., T. tctrarfijrui, Ehr., and T. Pal- lasii, Desv., all of which are found along the coast. There are also T. Jordanis, Boiss., T. manni/era, Ehr., T. articulata, Vahl, and T. macrocarpa, Bunge, desert species. They are shrubs or small trees, with a flattened hemispherical comus, and brittle branches and twigs, with minute scale-like leaves, white or pinkish, perfect or dioecious flowers, in dense spike-like racemes. Most of them thrive, especially in sandy soil, or exposures where they receive the sea air laden ^rith salt. They some- times attain a height of 30 ft., and would easily, in that case, serve as landmarks (1 S 22*). The tamarisk in Jabesh may have marked a shrine.
G. E. Post.
TAMMUZ (nsn, ea/i/ioi5f, Adonis).— In the 6th year of Jehoiacliin's captivity, and the 5th day of the 6th month, Ezekiel saw women in the north gate of the temple 'weeping for Tammuz' (Ezk 8'*). Tammuz was a Bab. deity wliose worship had been imported into the west at an early perioa. The name was originally the Siunerian Dumu-zi, 'the son of life,' which became in Semitic Baby- lonian Duwu-zu and DHzu, tliough in Babylonian con tract- tablets of the age of Abraham we al.so find Tamuzu (see Bee. de trav. rclat. a, la phil. et arch. (gyp. et assyr. t. xvii. p. 39 note). The form Ta'flz given by en-Nedim, an Arab writer of the 10th century, contains a reminisAnce of the abbreviated form, like the Thoas and Theias of Greek mythology.