DEVOTE

(Devoted Things; Devoted to Destruction).

In his dealings with the nation of Israel, Jehovah God decreed that certain things, persons, or even entire cities be placed under a sacred ban, thereby restricting them from any common or profane use. The word hheʹrem (a homonym of which is translated “dragnet” in Ezekiel 32:3; 47:10; Micah 7:2; Habakkuk 1:15-17) is used to refer to the thing so devoted, and conveys the idea of a “shutting up” of the devoted thing by placing it beyond ordinary use. The Hebrew lexicon by Koehler and Baumgartner (p. 334) defines hheʹrem as meaning a “thing or person devoted (to destruction or sacred use [and] therefore secluded from profane use),” and the causative form of the verb hha·ramʹ as “banish (by banning . . . seclude from society [and] life, devote to destruction).” Such devoted things in a sense, therefore, became “taboo” for the Israelites. The related word in Arabic retains a similar meaning till this day. To the Arab Muslims, the sacred territory of Mecca and Medina is considered haram; and the harim of the sheiks have long been forbidden ground to all persons other than the master of the harem or his eunuchs.

It was in the declaration of the Law that such sacred banning was first expressed. At Exodus 22:20 we read: “One who sacrifices to any gods but Jehovah alone is to be devoted to destruction [a form of hha·ramʹ].” This decree was applied impartially against the Israelites themselves, as in the case of the idolatry carried on at Shittim that resulted in the death of some twenty-four thousand of the nation. (Num. 25:1-9) The possession of a thing devoted to destruction could also make the possessor subject to such ban. Thus, concerning the religious images of the nations of Canaan, God warned the Israelites: “You must not bring a detestable thing [image] into your house and actually become a thing devoted to destruction [hheʹrem] like it. You should thoroughly loathe it and absolutely detest it, because it is something devoted to destruction.”—Deut. 7:25, 26.

The sacred ban did not always mean destruction. Articles, animals and even fields could be devoted to Jehovah and thus become holy items for sacred use by the priesthood or in temple service. However, persons who came under sacred ban were to be put to death without fail. No devoted thing was redeemable at any price, and this was a major distinction between a devoted thing and something otherwise sanctified.—Lev. 27:21, 28, 29; compare with verses 19, 27, 30, 31; Numbers 18:14; Joshua 6:18, 19, 24; Ezekiel 44:29; Ezra 10:8.

CANAANITES

It was in the conquest of Canaan that this sacred banning reached its greatest prominence. Prior to the official entry into the land, when the Canaanite king of Arad attacked Israel down in the Negeb, Jehovah approved the Israelites’ vow to devote the cities of his kingdom to destruction. (Num. 21:1-3) Following their attacks on Israel, the kingdoms of Sihon and Og, E of the Jordan, next came under ban, resulting in the destruction of all persons in their cities and the preservation of only the domestic animals and other spoil. (Deut. 2:31-35; 3:1-7) Later, on the Plains of Moab, just before the crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites, Jehovah reemphasized the vital need for clean worship and the avoidance of all corrupting influences. He decreed that seven nations in the Promised Land be placed under sacred ban and that their idolatrous populations be devoted to destruction by the Israelites’ acting as his executioners. (Deut. 7:1-6, 16, 22-26) Only faraway cities were to be given the option of seeking peace; but those nations designated by God as devoted to destruction were to be annihilated, “in order that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things, which they have done to their gods, and you may indeed sin against Jehovah your God.” (Deut. 20:10-18) The sparing of any of them would lead inevitably to infection and contamination by their false religions. Their extermination could serve to preserve the lives of the Israelites themselves; but, of greater importance, it would maintain the purity of the worship of the Universal Sovereign, Jehovah God. The same ban was to apply to any apostatizing member of their families or to the future inhabitants of any of the Israelite cities that might be established in the Promised Land.—Deut. 13:6-17.

West of the Jordan, Jericho was the first city devoted to destruction, with nothing being preserved except the metal articles for temple use. Due to her faith, Rahab and her family were granted exemption from the ban. In spite of Joshua’s strong warning that failure to observe the ban could result in the whole nation’s suffering a ban, Achan took some of the banned articles and thus made himself a “thing devoted to destruction.” Only his death relieved the entire nation from coming under the same ban.—Josh. 6:17-19; 7:10-15, 24-26.

Gibeonites

Thereafter numerous cities were devoted to destruction. (Josh. 8:26, 27; 10:28-42; 11:11, 12) Concerning such cities, the record states: “There proved to be no city that made peace with the sons of Israel but the Hivites inhabiting Gibeon. All the others they took by war. For it proved to be Jehovah’s course to let their hearts become stubborn so as to declare war against Israel, in order that he might devote them to destruction, that they might come to have no favorable consideration, but in order that he might annihilate them, just as Jehovah had commanded Moses.”—Josh. 11:19, 20.

Saul’s failure

After Israel settled in the land, the Israelites residing in Jabesh-gilead came under ban for failing to support a united action against the tribe of Benjamin in punishment for its wickedness. (Judg. 21:8-12) King Saul failed to carry out completely the terms of a ban on Amalek and its king, offering the pretext that the things preserved were to be offered in sacrifice to Jehovah. He was told that “to obey is better than a sacrifice” and that the kingship would now be given to another. (1 Sam. 15:1-23) King Ahab was guilty of a similar action with regard to the Syrian Ben-hadad. (1 Ki. 20:42) The inhabitants of Mount Seir were devoted to destruction by the Ammonites and Moabites.—2 Chron. 20:22, 23.

ASSYRIAN FAILURE

The Assyrian Sennacherib boasted that no god had been able to save the nations whom his forefathers had devoted to destruction. (2 Chron. 32:14) Assyria’s false gods, however, were unable to make effective such a ban on Jerusalem, and the true God Jehovah proved Sennacherib’s threat to be impotent. Nevertheless, the very land of Judah, due to stubbornness and rebellion of the people, did eventually become a land devoted by God to destruction and suffered devastation at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. (Jer. 25:1-11; Isa. 43:28) Babylon thereafter came in for devotion to destruction in the full sense of the expression.—Jer. 50:21-27; 51:1-3; compare Revelation 18:2-8.

OTHER MENTION

Sacred bans figure in a number of prophecies. Malachi 4:5, 6 foretells the work of “Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and fear-inspiring day of Jehovah,” in order that Jehovah “may not come and actually strike the earth with a devoting of it to destruction.” (Compare Matthew 24:21, 22.) Daniel 11:44 describes the symbolic “king of the north” going forth in great rage “to annihilate and to devote many to destruction.” Jehovah, because of his indignation, is described as devoting “all the nations” to destruction. (Isa. 34:2; compare Revelation 19:15-21.) The triumphant “daughter of Zion” is said to devote, by a ban, the unjust profit and the resources of the enemy peoples to “the true Lord of the whole earth.” (Mic. 4:13) It is foretold that Jerusalem, delivered from all her enemies, will be inhabited and that henceforth there will occur “no more any banning to destruction.”—Zech. 14:11; compare Revelation 22:3.

These scriptures all serve to emphasize the divine statement at Deuteronomy 7:9, 10: “And you well know that Jehovah your God is the true God, the faithful God, keeping covenant and loving-kindness in the case of those who love him and those who keep his commandments to a thousand generations, but repaying to his face the one who hates him by destroying him. He will not hesitate toward the one who hates him; he will repay him to his face.” God’s Son, who gave his life as a ransom, declared: “He that exercises faith in the Son has everlasting life; he that disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.” (John 3:36) The cursed “goats” of the prophetic parable at Matthew 25:31-46 are clearly such persons upon whom the wrath of God remains and who are therefore devoted to everlasting destruction.

In the Septuagint the word hheʹrem is generally translated by the Greek a·naʹthe·ma.—See CURSE; Vow.

DEW

Small drops of water produced by the condensation of moisture in the air, of water vapor arising from the ground, and of moisture exuded by plants. The Hebrew word for “dew,” tal, has been defined as “sprinkled moisture” and also signifies “light rain.” (Prov. 3:20) Dew becomes silvery-white, icy hoarfrost when the lower air strata drop in temperature to 32° Fahrenheit. Jehovah is responsible for the dewdrops and is said to scatter the hoarfrost “just like ashes.”—Ps. 147:16; Job 38:28.

Dew forms when night air laden with water vapor cools, depositing the vapor on cooler objects in liquid form. It also develops when warm watery vapor rising from the ground comes in contact with the cooling air. The Bible explains that, early in earth’s history, before it rained on earth, “a mist [vapor] would go up from the earth and it watered the entire surface of the ground.” (Gen. 2:6; compare 1953 edition.) Dew is also produced by plants. In sunlight, moisture from vegetation evaporates into the air, and a plant continues to draw water that has been absorbed by its roots until a balance is obtained between the temperature at the tip of the leaves and that at the plant’s roots. The great amount of dew thus produced by some trees can often be heard dripping from them at night. Most morning dew seems to have this source. Job said, “My root is opened for the waters, and dew itself will stay overnight upon my bough.”—Job 29:19.

In Israel there is normally little if any rain from mid-April to mid-October. However, dew forms and waters the vegetation during these months. The Geography of the Bible says (p. 43): “The value of the dew, which is largely responsible for the growth of grapes during the summer drought, was well appreciated in Biblical times.” Isaiah refers to the “dew in the heat of [grape] harvest.” (Isa. 18:4, 5) After this came the autumn or ‘early’ rains. (Joel 2:23; Jas. 5:7) Night dews in certain areas are so heavy that trees and other plants thereby obtain more than enough moisture to compensate for loss through evaporation during the day. Hence, nocturnal dews may well account for a bountiful harvest where drought and starvation would otherwise prevail.

The importance of dew is emphasized by the discovery that when plants have wilted from dry heat they have recovered more rapidly when dew formed on their leaves at night than they did when the ground was watered. They absorbed so much dew that they functioned normally during the succeeding day without any watering of the ground. The amount of water absorbed from dew and later excreted through the roots into the soil for storage sometimes equaled the plant’s entire weight.

During Israel’s forty-year wilderness trek, the divinely provided manna regularly descended with the dew, remaining upon the earth after the dew’s evaporation. (Ex. 16:13-18; Num. 11:9) By two signs involving dew, Gideon obtained proof of divine support before going forth to fight the Midianites. First, he kept a fleece of wool exposed on a threshing floor overnight, the dew developing only on the fleece while the earth was dry. In the second test, matters were reversed. It is not revealed whether this was the rainless season when dew could be expected.—Judg. 6:36–7:1.

FIGURATIVE USE

Dew is Scripturally associated with blessing, fertility and abundance. (Gen. 27:28; Deut. 33:13, 28; Zech. 8:12) A return to Jehovah would result in blessing, God saying: “I shall become like the dew to Israel.” (Hos. 14:1, 5) Through Micah, God foretold that “the remaining ones of Jacob” would “become in the midst of many peoples like dew from Jehovah, like copious showers upon vegetation,” foretelling that the remnant of spiritual Jacob (Israel) would be a blessing from God to the people.—Mic. 5:7.

Conversely, lack or the withholding of dew is associated with a disfavored condition. (Gen. 27:39; Hag. 1:10) When God withheld dew and rain from the land of Israel in the days of King Ahab and Elijah, famine resulted.—1 Ki. 17:1; Luke 4:25.

Morning clouds and dew in Israel vanished rapidly in the sun’s heat. What little loving-kindness there was in Ephraim (Israel) and Judah had vanished similarly. (Hos. 6:4) And because of wrongdoing, the inhabitants of Ephraim (Israel) would be taken into captivity, becoming “like the dew that early goes away.”—Hos. 13:1-3, 16.

Dewdrops are quiet and numerous. Perhaps to denote stealthiness or a multitude as numerous as dewdrops, Hushai told Absalom: “We ourselves will be upon [David] just as the dew falls upon the ground.” (2 Sam. 17:12) Jehovah’s King has his “company of young men just like dewdrops,” perhaps as to number.—Ps. 110:3.

Dew is also gentle and refreshing. It is aptly applied to Moses’ farewell prophetic song. (Deut. 32:2) A king’s goodwill is likened to the refreshing effect of dew on vegetation. (Prov. 19:12) The loving unity prevailing among God’s people is refreshing “like the dew of Hermon that is descending upon the mountains of Zion.” Mount Hermon’s forest-covered and perpetually snow-streaked heights caused night vapors to arise that could be carried so far by cold air currents coming down over Hermon from the N that these vapors could condense upon Zion’s mountains many miles to the S.—Ps. 133:1-3.

DIADEM

See CROWN.

DIAMOND

A brilliant precious stone, the hardest natural mineral yet discovered and among the most valuable of gems. Although diamonds are generally colorless, some have such tints as yellow, green, red, brown, blue and black. Most uncut diamonds are eight-sided transparent or translucent crystals and are composed of nearly pure carbon. Diamonds are thought to have been formed long ago when the earth’s carbon was subjected to great pressure and heat. Early diamonds were found in stream beds, but in modern times they are usually mined from rock formations deep in the earth.

The Hebrew word sha·mirʹ (translated “diamond” twice, “emery stone” once in NW) denotes “a sharp point” and is sometimes applied to a thornbush or thorns. (Isa. 5:6; 32:13) Some suggest that sha·mirʹ may apply to a very hard mineral loosely identified by the general term “adamant” (from Greek a·daʹmas, meaning “unconquerable”), which may refer to diamond