ACCURSED á kûrs’ sid, å kûrst’ (חֵ֫רֶמ֒, H3051, devoted, קְלָלָה, H7839, curse; κατάρατος, ἐπικατάρατος, cursed). The characteristic term for this concept is hērem, which signified a person or thing devoted to Jehovah and therefore not to be used or even touched by man. Usually it was to be devoted to destruction, as in the case of Jericho and all its inhabitants and livestock (Josh 6:17), which as the most degenerate of the Canaanite cities was to be completely destroyed (except for its vessels of silver, gold, brass and iron, which were to be dedicated to God in the sanctuary). Anyone touching such a hērem incurred the curse of God, and like Achan, had to be destroyed; the taint of his sacrilege put all Israel under this curse (7:12) so that they were routed by the defenders of Ai. The verb from this root (the hiphil heh^erim) meant “render accursed” or “utterly destroy” (Num 21:2, 3, the cities of Arad) as Joshua warned Israel not to take any spoil from Jericho, “lest you make yourselves accursed” (Josh 6:18). A criminal hung on the gallows was said to be “accursed of God”; but here the term used is q^elālah, “curse,” from the verb qillēl (“regard as light, worthless, vile” and hence, “to curse”). Similarly in Isaiah 65:20 (speaking of longevity in the kingdom age): “the sinner being an hundred years old (i.e., at death) shall be accursed (i.e., because he has died so young).” The LXX rendered hērem by anathema, which originally meant “something set up” (as a votive offering), but here meant “something devoted to God for judgment and destruction”—as the teacher of a fa lse gospel (Gal 1:8 KJV), or as Paul wished himself to be if it would bring the Jewish race to a saving knowledge of Christ (Rom 9:3). A term familiar in classical Gr. was kataratos, “bound under a curse,” of which an intensified form was epikataratos, which appears in John 7:49 RSV (“This crowd, who do not know the law, are accursed”). The noun form was katara (Gal 3:10 KJV, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse”). See Ban; Anathema.