Sull'idea di 'confine' nella Bibbia ebraica

This is a short essay in the semantics of ancient Hebrew words deriving from the root gbl “border, to border”. The semantic field of the “border” has a strong religious connotation in the Hebrew Bible, as in other Near Eastern civilizations. As God created universe by setting borders through chaos, so human borders (between estates, tribes and nations) are defined and traced by God or his representatives and placed under God’s protection and control. Biblical borders, as a necessary factor of cosmic order planned by God, are consistently elaborated and discussed from a political and/or ideological point of view, for the sake of religious legitimization of expansion towards new borders or defense of newly acquired ones (e.g. David’s and Solomon’s “great Israel”).