TABEEL. – With the deliberately somewhat mysterious allusion, the name “son of T.” in Is 7:6 refers to a person whom the king of Damascus, Rezin, and the king of Samaria, Pekah (Pequah), would have wished to substitute for the king of Jerusalem, Ahaz, in punishment for his refusal to join the anti-Assyrian league they had planned.
The two allies attempted to carry out their plan and to come and besiege Jerusalem, but they were diverted from this by the arrival of Tiglath-Pileser III, who in that campaign definitively destroyed the kingdom of Damascus (732 BC).
It is not known who T. was or who his son was; nor is the pronunciation of the name certain, which in the Masoretic text is vocalized Tâbhê’al: the first element tâbh, which in Hebrew should rather be tòbh (with an Aramaicizing nuance; was the individual in question an Aramean from Damascus?), the second will be -’al in the Jewish-Masoretic tradition by allusion to the particle ’al, “no, nothing” (= good for nothing), whereas in reality it would be -’el as in the versions. In Hebrew the name should be Tòbh’el, or Tòbh’el; cf. Akkadian Tàb-ilu.
The same name was borne by a Samaritan official mentioned in Ezra 4:7 (where the Hebrew also has Tàbhe’el).
Giovanni Rinaldi
TABELA, AUDIENCES OF. – These are the audiences granted, according to a fixed schedule, to cardinals or prelates who head the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia.
They are regulated by a special list (tabella) drawn up each year by the Supreme Pontiff and have a private character. They therefore differ from the special audiences granted to persons of high administrative or social rank, and from the general audiences granted to more or less numerous groups. These latter take place, depending on the number of participants, in the various halls or courtyards, in St Peter’s Basilica or even in the great Square of St Peter’s. The office of the Master of the Papal Chamber (v.) is in charge of granting these audiences.