One of the "four skirts" (, Isaiah 11:12; Ezekiel 7:2; Job 37:3, 38:13) or "four corners," known also as the "four ends" (Jeremiah 49:36) or "four winds" (Ezekiel 37:9; Daniel 8:8, 11:4), into which the Hebrews, following Assyrian analogies, divided heaven and earth. As the EAST was termed "á¸³edem" (= "front"), the west was designated as "aá¸¥or"(= "rear"; Isaiah 9:11; Job 23:8). Since the Mediterranean Sea was west of Palestine, the noun (= "sea") became afavorite term to denote the west (Exodus 10:19, 27:12, 38:12; Genesis 12:8, 28:14; Isaiah 49:12; Psalms 107:3), another word being "ma'arab" (= "the point where the sun sets"; Psalms 75:7 [A. V. 6], 103:12, 107:3; Isaiah 43:5, 45:6).

In later Hebrew "ma'arab" is the common term for "west" (B. B. 25a). It may have been in opposition to the Babylonian belief that the entrance to the realm of death was situated in the west that R. Abbahu advanced the opinion that the SHEKINAH was in the west (ib.). The contrary assumption, attributed to the heretics ("minim"), who were said to maintain the doctrine that the Shekinah resided in the east, seems, therefore, to be a reminiscence of Babylonian influence. Since Palestine lay to the west of Babylon, it came to be designated as Ma'araba (Ber. 2b et seq.; Yeb. 17a et passim), and its inhabitants were called the "sons of the West" (Niddah 51b).

E. G. H.

Bibliography Information
Singer, Isidore, Ph.D, Projector and Managing Editor. Entry for 'West'. 1901 The Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tje/w/west.html. 1901.

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The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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