Reward Recompense
Reward Recompense [1]
Shâlam (שָׁלֵם, Strong'S #7999), “to recompense, reward, be whole, be complete, sound.” A common Semitic term, this verb is found in ancient Akkadian and Ugaritic and in all periods of Hebrew. The root is familiar to most people in the word shâlam , which is the common Jewish greeting. The verb shâlam occurs just over 100 times in the Hebrew Bible.
In its first occurrence in the Old Testament, the word has the sense of “repaying” or “restoring”: “Why have you returned evil for good?” (Gen. 44:4, Rsv). Sometimes it means “to complete or finish”—for example, completing the temple (1 Kings 9:25). In Lev. 24:18, shâlam describes compensation for injury: “And he that killeth a beast shall make it good [life for life].”
Perhaps it should be noted that the Arabic terms Muslim and Islam are derived from the Arabic cognate to shalam and imply “submission to Allah.”
