Tammuz

Perhaps this might be taken from the word Ammuz, which means somewhat concealed. We no where meet with the word but Ezek. 8. 14. And the Holy Ghost, by his servant the prophet, hath thought proper to say so little upon it, that we can only form conjectures from the Scriptures connected with it. As this was an age when Israel were gone far into idolatry, it should seem that this was an idol particularly worshipped by the women, as the sun was the idol of the men. And from the connected circumstances with the idolatry of the neighboring nations, there is reason to believe that acts of obscenity and lewdness accompanied this horrid species of Israel’s transgressions. One of the old writers, David Kimchi, hath gone so far as to explain according to his views, and perhaps from tradition, that this figure of Tammuz was made of hollow brass, the eyes of the figure filled with a composition that when melted from the heat of a fire made within, seemed to drop like tears; and that upon those occasions the women at their festivals presented themselves before the idol as weeping before it. Oh, what an awful state is our nature reduced to by the fall! (See Moloch.)

Tam´muz, a Syrian deity, for whom the Hebrew idolatresses were accustomed to hold an annual lamentation (Eze 8:14). This idol was the same with the Phoenician Adon or Adonis, and the feast itself such as they celebrated. The feast held in honor of Tammuz was solstitial, and commenced with the new moon of July, in the month also called Tammuz; it consisted of two parts, the one consecrated to lamentation, and the other to joy; in the days of grief they mourned the disappearance of the god, and in the days of gladness celebrated his discovery and return. Tammuz appears to have been a sort of incarnation of the sun, regarded principally as in a state of passion and sufferance, in connection with the apparent vicissitudes in its celestial position, and with respect to the terrestrial metamorphoses produced, under its influence, upon vegetation in advancing to maturity.

A Syrian idol, mentioned in Eze 8:14, where the women are represented as weeping for it. It is generally supposed that Tammuz was the same deity as the Phoenician Adonis, and perhaps the Egyptian Osiris. The fabled death and restoration of Adonis, supposed to symbolize the departure and return of the sun, were celebrated at the summer solstice first with lamentation, and then with rejoicing and obscene revels.\par

Tam’muz. (sprout of life). Properly "the Tammuz," the article indicating that, at some time or other, the word had been regarded as an appellative. Eze 8:14. Jerome identifies Tammuz with Adonis, of Grecian mythology, who was fabled to have lost his wife while hunting, by a wound from the tusk of a wild boar.

He was greatly beloved by the goddess Venus, who was inconsolable at his loss. His blood, according to Ovid, produced the anemone, but, according to others, the adonium, while the anemone sprang from the tears of Venus. A festival in honor of Adonis was celebrated at Byblus in Phoenicia, and in most of the Grecian cities, and even by the Jews, when they degenerated into idolatry. It took place in July, and was accompanied by obscene rites.

From tamzuwz, "melted down," referring to the river Adonis fed by the melted snows of Lebanon, also to the sun’s decreasing heat in winter, and to Venus’ melting lamentations for Adonis. Tammuz was the Syrian Adonis (Jerome), Venus’ paramour, killed by a wild boar, and according to mythology permitted to spend half the year on earth and obliged to spend the other half in the lower world. An annual feast was kept to him in June (Tammuz in the Jewish calendar) at Byblos, when the Syrian women tore off their hair in wild grief, and yielded their persons to prostitution, consecrating the hire of their infamy to Venus; next followed days of rejoicing for his return to the earth. The idea fabled was spring’s beauties and the river’s waters destroyed by summer heat (the river Adonis or nahr Ibrahim in spring becomes discolored with the heavy rains swelling the streams from Lebanon, which discoloration superstition attributed to Tammuz’ blood); or else the earth clothed with beauty in the half year while the sun is in the upper hemisphere, and losing it when he descends to the lower (Eze 8:14).

Instead of" weeping for Tammuz," the idol of beauty and licentiousness, the women ought to have wept for the national sins. Christian women, instead of weeping over fictitious tales of morbid love and carnal sorrows, ought to consecrate their fine sensibilities to the active promotion of the glory of Him who is altogether lovely, and whose bitter and unmerited sufferings should call forth our tears of grateful and glowing love. Imitate Mary who, when all others were gone, stood at the crucified Lord’s sepulchre weeping, and so had her tears dried up by the risen Saviour Himself (Joh 20:11-16). Isis’ relation to Osiris in Egypt was the same as that of Venus to Adonis. Adoni means my lord, like Baali. Constantine suppressed the worship for its profligacy.

[Tam’muz]

A Phoenician idol, supposed by some to be the same as the Greek Adonis, as in the Vulgate. The prophet saw women weeping for ’the Tammuz,’ who according to tradition had been slain. Eze 8:14.

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By: Joseph Jacobs, Isaac Broydé

Fourth ecclesiastical and tenth civil month of the Hebrew calendar. It consists of twenty-nine days, and corresponds to part of June and part of July. During the last years of the Second Temple the 14th of Tammuz was declared a feast-day in commemoration of a victory gained by the Pharisees over the Sadducees in a dispute regarding the interpretation of the Law (Ta'an. iv. 6). The 17th of Tammuz is the public fast-day called "Shib'ah 'Asar be-Tammuz," in commemoration of the breaking down of the walls of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. As stated in Jer. xxxix. 2, this catastrophe occurred on the 9th day of the month; the 17th was selected because, during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, a similar catastrophe happened on that day (Ta'an. 26a; Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḣ Ḥayyim, 549).

According to the Megillat Ta'anit (iv. 6), four other calamities had overtaken the people of Israel on the 17th: the breaking of the tables of the Law by Moses, the cessation of the perpetual offering, the burning of the Torah and the erection of an idol in the sanctuary, by Apostomus (comp. Josephus, "Ant." xx. 5, § 4; idem, "B. J." ii. 12, § 2), and the discontinuance of the sacrifices. With the 17th begin the three weeks of mourning over the destruction of Jerusalem, which end with the 9th of Ab. During this period it is forbidden to celebrate marriages, to cut the hair, to bathe, etc. (Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 551). The pious fast every day during these three weeks (ib.). The 27th of Tammuz is the anniversary of the burning of the tanna Ḥanina ben Teradion during the Hadrianic persecutions (additions to Megillat Ta'anit, ed. Neubauer, in "M. J. C." ii. 24).

TAMMUZ (Eze 8:14) was a Babylonian god whose worship spread into Phœnicia. The name appears to be Sumerian, Dumuzi, Tamuzu, and may mean ‘son of life.’ He was a form of the Sun-god and bridegroom of Ishtar. He was celebrated as a shepherd, cut off in early life or slain by the boar (winter). Ishtar descended to Hades to bring him back to life. He was mourned on the second of the month Tammuz (June). His Canaanite name Adonai gave rise to the Greek Adonis, and he was later identified with the Egyptian Osiris. In Amo 8:10 and Zec 12:10 the mourning for ‘the only son’ may be a reference to this annual mourning, and the words of the refrain, ‘Ah me, ah me l’ (Jer 22:18) may be recalled.

C. H. W. Johns.

tam´uz, tam´mōōz (תּמּוּז, tammūz; Θαμμούζ, Thammoúz):

(1) The name of a Phoenician deity, the Adonis of the Greeks. He was originally a Sumerian or Babylonian sun-god, called Dumuzu, the husband of Ishtar, who corresponds to Aphrodite of the Greeks. The worship of these deities was introduced into Syria in very early times under the designation of Tammuz and Astarte, and appears among the Greeks in the myth of Adonis and Aphrodite, who are identified with Osiris and Isis of the Egyptian pantheon, showing how widespread the cult became. The Babylonian myth represents Dumuzu, or Tammuz, as a beautiful shepherd slain by a wild boar, the symbol of winter. Ishtar long mourned for him and descended into the underworld to deliver him from the embrace of death (Frazer, Adonis, Attis and Osiris). This mourning for Tammuz was celebrated in Babylonia by women on the 2nd day of the 4th month, which thus acquired the name of Tammuz (see CALENDAR). This custom of weeping for Tammuz is referred to in the Bible in the only passage where the name occurs (Eze 8:14). The chief seat of the cult in Syria was Gebal (modern Gebail, Greek Bublos) in Phoenicia, to the South of which the river Adonis (Nahr Ibrahı̂m) has its mouth, and its source is the magnificent fountain of Apheca (modern ‛Afḳa), where was the celebrated temple of Venus or Aphrodite, the ruins of which still exist. The women of Gebal used to repair to this temple in midsummer to celebrate the death of Adonis or Tammuz, and there arose in connection with this celebration those licentious rites which rendered the cult so infamous that it was suppressed by Constantine the Great.

The name Adonis, by which this deity was known to the Greeks, is none other than the Phoenician אדון, ’Ādhōn, which is the same in Hebrew. His death is supposed to typify the long, dry summer of Syria and Palestine, when vegetation perishes, and his return to life the rainy season when the parched earth is revivified and is covered with luxuriant vegetation, or his death symbolizes the cold, rough winter, the boar of the myth, and his return the verdant spring.

Considering the disgraceful and licentious rites with which the cult was celebrated, it is no wonder that Ezekiel should have taken the vision of the women weeping for Tammuz in the temple as one of the greatest abominations that could defile the Holy House. See ADONIS.

(2) The fourth month of the Jewish year, corresponding to July. The name is derived from that of a Syrian god, identified with Adonis (Eze 8:14). See above, and CALENDAR.

The fourth month of the Jewish year, occurring in June/July. See Months of the Jewish Year.