More Anomalies A – Z: ‘Ôb

From earthen deeps come loathsome voices
and words not mouthed by human lips or tongue,
for no living breath could carry whispers
such as these, out of the dark, up from dust.

‘Ôb – the revenant spirit of the dead,
this familiar spirit now returned
from ash to ash, from loam and the marlpit
to speak through the gut of a medium. 

The translators of the LXX chose the Greek word engastrimythos (‘one who speaks from the belly’) to translate the Hebrew word ‘ôb.