megel
מגל
In modern Jewish culture, “megillah” has come to mean a specific body of knowledge dealing with laws and stories relating to Purim, a Jewish holiday originating from the Book of Esther.
The word appears in Yiddish influenced slang as “the whole megillah”, meaning roughly the same as “the whole kit and caboodle”, in reference to the particularly complicated, convoluted, and exhaustive set of arrangements in a long-winded story.
More generally though, a 'megel' is any scroll or specialized tube for containing a scroll. The word is used in this context in the Psalms, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; all of which predate the narrative contained in the book of Esther which takes place in the middle of the Babylonian exile.
Zechariah uses the term 'megel' to describe the shape of a large bronze flying cylindrically shaped object he witnessed, as discussed in greater detail under its alternate name of merekeb.
LexID 4039